Poland's Place in Eurasia: Eurasianism As An Analytical Framework and The Polish Question

UNIVERSITYOFWROCAW
FACULTYOFHISTORICALANDPEDAGOGICALSCIENCES
JAFE
ARNOLD
POLANDS
PLACE
IN
EURASIA:
EURASIANISM
AS
AN
ANALYTICAL
FRAMEWORK
AND
THE
POLISH
QUESTION
Bachelorthesiswrittenunderthesupervisionof:
Prof.drhab.PrzemysawWiszewski
WROC
AW2017

Table
of
Contents:
INTRODUCTION. 3
CHAPTER1.THEEURASIANISTSANDTHEIREURASIANISMSFROMSOFIATO
HYPERBOREA... 13
1.1ThegenesisofclassicalEurasianism.13
1.2Thespaceandplace-development(mestorazvitie)ofEurasia... 17
1.3TheEurasianpeopleandtheirstatehoodinhistory... 19
1.4Parisvs.Prague:ThefailedBolshevizationofEurasianism. 22
1.5ThefirstlastEurasianist:LevGumilev..25
1.6SacredgeographyandtheEurasianmission:AlexanderDugin... 27
CHAPTER2.THEEURASIANISTANALYTICALTOOLBOX. 32
2.1Geography,space,andplace-development....32
2.2Eurasiangeopolitics... 35
2.3Ethnosociologyandpeople 40
2.4ThereligiousmatrixandTraditionalism....44
2.5Civilizationasaconcept.... 50
CHAPTER3.POLANDFROMA EURASIANISTPERSPECTIVE....51
3.1Polandsgeographicalfate.51
..
3.2ThegeopoliticsofPoland 57
3.3ThedilemmaofthePolishpeople.. .......64
3.4TheChristofNations:Polandsreligiousbirthmark.66
3.5PolandbetweenEuropeandEurasia..69
CONCLUSION
71
BIBLIOGRAPHY....73
INTRODUCTION
In recent years, the terms Eurasia and Eurasianism have become commonplace in
Russian political discourse, scholarly literature, analytical think-tanks, and a number of political
movements.1 A rather unknown and previously ignored school of thought ascribed to a group of
Russian emigres in the 1920s and 30s, Eurasianism has since the 1990s not only reappeared
as an attractive and even respectably feared political and intellectual force in the post-Soviet
space, but has also supposedly been exposed as Russias new ideological export and global
explanatory scheme replacing the former Soviet Unions Marxist-Leninist doctrine.2 No matter
from whatever angle Eurasianism is approached, there is nevertheless a widespread, expanding
recognition of its gravity. In the words of Maria Carlson from The Russian Review, Eurasianism
is a subject worthy of excavation and analysis for anyone who uneasily senses that something is
moving in the deep currents beneath the surface of contemporary Russia, but is not sure of what
3
it is. Marlene Laruelle, one of the leading Western scholars of Eurasianism, similarly
underscored the significance of the tide of this deep current by explaining that the core concept
of Eurasia has undergone profound transformation...It has grown beyond the purely
intellectual circles to which it had been confined...entering a larger public space. The idea of
4
Eurasia...is now being used as a catchall vision of Russia. Coincidentally or not, in a poll
conducted by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center in 2001, 71% of respondents said that
Russia is a unique Euro-Asian civilization.5 The increasing traction of Eurasianist affiliated
entities and the burgeoning concern for it expressed among scholars and media has even been
1
Forthelatestscholarshipontheinfluenceof
Eurasianism on
contemporary Russian foreign
policy,
culture
and
scholarshipinthepost-Sovietspace,andEurasianist-affiliated political
movements, see:
Bassin,
M.,Pozo,
G.,
2017,
ThePoliticsofEurasianism:Identity,Popular Culture, andRussiasForeignPolicy,
London,Rowman and
LittlefieldInternational;Laruelle,M.,2015,Eurasianism and
the
European FarRight:Reshapingthe
Europe-RussiaRelationship,Maryland,Lexington Books/Rowman and
Littlefield
Publishing Group.
2
Laruelle,M.,2008,RussianEurasianism:An Ideology of
Empire,
Washington D.C., Woodrow WilsonCenter
Press,p.221
3
RussianEurasianism:AnIdeologyofEmpire ,
https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/content/russian-eurasianism
[17.04.2016]
4
Laruelle,2008,opcit.,p.1.
5
:"" - 2-5
,
12.11.2001,<http://polit.ru/article/2001/11/15/477387/> [25.05.2017]
3

lent a hysterical side, as when the sensationalist American political commentator Glenn Beck
described Alexander Dugin, the most prominent representative of Eurasianism today, as one of
6
themostdangeroushumanbeingson
theplanetandcomparedhimtoHitler.
Despite growing attention to the at-last discovered legacy of Eurasianism, a most cursory
glance reveals that no consensus has been achieved as to the nature, categorization, and role of
Eurasianism. Indeed, the novice onlooker is usually struck with the confounding, simultaneous
identification of Eurasianism with different subjects, denotations, and connotations. Depending
on the context or representative, Eurasianism has been presented as (1) a philosophy of history or
Weltanschauung, (2) a geopolitical school of thought or orientation, (3) an alternative scenario of
globalization, or more practically (4) the integration of the post-Soviet space. Even the
handbook of the contemporary International Eurasianist Movement, Eurasian Mission: An
7
Introduction to Neo-Eurasianism, presents seven alternative perceptions. In terms of scholarly
definitions, some maintain that Eurasianism is merely another, yet infinitely more ambitious
form of Great Russian nationalism-cum-imperialism; others claim that Eurasianism represents a
unique Russian variety of fascism or the Third Way; some assert that it is part of the general
8
surge of cultural fundamentalism since the end of the Socialist East/Capitalist West divide,
while still others claim that Eurasianism is in fact a syncretic system whose intellectual arsenal
surpasses and even threatens to overcome the three main socio-political theories of Modernity -
9
Liberalism, Marxism, and Fascism. The multi-faceted character of Eurasianism and the diverse
backgrounds of its thinkers and applications have more often that not confounded many critics
into reducing Eurasianism to one or more of its particular dimensions, thus pigeonholing it into
one or another form which unjustifiably amputates its other component parts. The ensuing
reductionistcategorizationsarenumerous.
What is Eurasianism? What is its raison detre? What does it have to offer? Is
Eurasianism reserved solely for Russia, or can its various theses and analytical frameworks be
applied to the history of other countries, such as Poland, which has a paradigmatically turbulent
6
BeckG.,WhatYouNeedToKnowAbout Russian
LeaderAleksandr
Dugin-Glenn
BeckProgram,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KuRmiXjAgg [17.04.2016]
7
Dugin,A.,2014,EurasianMission:AnIntroductionto
Neo-Eurasianism,
Arktos,
Chapter
3.
8
9
SeeAlexanderDuginsTheFourthPoliticalTheory(2012)
4

history with the homeland of Eurasianism? This paper seeks to, firstly, present and interpret the
history and intellectual products of Eurasianism in order to demonstrate its nature as a school of
thought incorporating a set of specific analytical frameworks, and, secondly, systematically
present the Eurasianists unique observations on the identity and situation of Eurasias western
neighbor, Poland - a case study which has not been attempted by scholars nor, as we will see,
many Eurasianists. Before venturing into further explanation of our methodology and study,
however, it is worth presenting the two general contours which outline Eurasianism and form its
lowest common denominators no matter what exact definition is later applied to it, and analyzing
the historical context of its emergence. These clarifications will allow us to lay the initial
groundwork of contextual and hermeneutical understanding for analyzing the broad trend of
Eurasianism and the potential of a case study applying its premises to entities other than the
Eurasianistsownsubject,Russia-Eurasia,itself.
The earliest roots of what would later sprout into Eurasianism lie in the historical context
of the late 19th and early 20th century Russian Empire and among the various political and
intellectual movements which sought to clarify and rescue the identity and role of an increasingly
crisis-ridden and disoriented Russian state and society. By the 19th century, the state-regulated
processes of Westernization and modernization originally initiated by Peter the Great
(1672-1725) had yielded paradoxical consequences reflected in both objective and subjective
crises. On the one hand, Russia appeared to be positioned as the European leader in Asia. On
the other hand, it was the Asian toddler in Europe who seemed unable to live up to the
Western schema of development and compete with the more technologically and
socio-economically advanced European powers. In both arenas, however, Russia was rapidly
turning out to be on the losing end. Humiliating military defeats in the Crimean War, the
Russo-Japanese War, and ultimately the First World War, the rapid development of capitalism
accompanied by immense socio-economic and political disturbances, and the corresponding
restlessness of both the loyal and oppositional intelligentsia all together fomented a newfound
search for the identity and proper place of one-sixth of the globes landmass. The empire which,
as the Eurasianists would later claim, had several centuries ago been assured of its historical,
messianic mission as the Third Rome, was now faced with disorientation and disillusion in the
faceofinternalcrisesandexternalmissteps.10
The two main competing visions for rectifying the historical trajectory of the Russian
Empire which preceded Eurasianism found expression in the Slavophile, or Pan-Slavist
movement and the so-called Orientalizers (vostochniki) trend. The Slavophiles saw Russias
Westernization as the main problem and praised Russia as the leader of the worlds Slavic
peoples whose historical mission was to unite the Slavic countries of Europe and their
historically, culturally, and genetically close allies in the form of the Russian Empires
non-Slavic ethnoi in a grand imperial endeavor. Although the Pan-Slavist movement had its
share of political and philosophical divisions, the Slavophiles all generally appealed to Russias
traditional, non-Western facets of culture as sources of salvation from the problems inherent to
mimicking the West. Orthodoxy, mysticism, rural life, and Slavdom were seen as offering the
cultural and spiritual foundations for successful empire-building in competition with Europe and
simultaneously proving Russia superiority over the Orient. Russia and Russian history were thus
situated in the context of and indeed at the head of Slavdom as a civilizational conglomerate
lying somewhere between West and East. The Orientalizers, on the other hand, defined Russia in
terms of its Asian identity and the necessity of a pivot to the East rather than its linguistic,
religious, or cultural affiliations with Slavdom. As in the case of Pan-Slavism, however, this
Eastern-oriented identification served purely pragmatic ends of imperial policy which
nonetheless kept the European arena at the center of Russias referential, competitive identity.
Between the Orientalizers and Slavophiles stood an ever-present amalgamation of thinkers who
ambiguously placed Russia somewhere in the middle. The words of Petr Chaadaev (We do not
belong to any of the great families of the human race; we are neither of the West nor of the
East) are representative along with the comment of Dostoevsky: In Europe we are Tatars, but
10
For scholarly discussion of the crisis of policy and identity in the late Russian Empire in the context of
corresponding intellectual responses which preceded Eurasianism and changing discourse on Europe and Asia, see
The Historical Roots of the Eurasianist Idea in M. Laruelles Russian Eurasianism: An Ideology of Empire
(2008);
Sergey Glebovs From Empire to Eurasia: Politics, Scholarship, and Ideology in Russian Eurasianism,
1920s-1930s (2017); Olga Mairovas A Revolutionary and the Empire: Alexander Herzen and Russian Discourse
on Asia and Vera Tolzs The Eurasians and Liberal Scholarship of the Late Imperial Period: Continuity and
Change across the 1917 Divide in Bassin, M., Glebov, S., Laruelle, M., 2015, Between Europe and Asia: The
Origins,Theories,andLegaciesofRussianEurasianism,
Pittsburgh,
University
of
Pittsburgh
Press.
6

11
in Asia we too are Europeans. All of the above stood in opposition to the Westernizers who,
as the name indicates, wholeheartedly supported Russias convergence with Western models and
norms. Both the Slavophile and Orientalizing movements, however, were cut off in practice and
toalargeextentrenderedtheoreticallymootbythecourseofeventsleadingupto1917.
The traumatic and cathartic experiences of the Russian Revolution, the Russian Civil
War, and the ensuring socialist experiment which uprooted and transformed the entire
socio-political landscape of the Russian Empire provided the ultimate impetus for the formation
of a new school of thought that sought to critically re-examine the trajectory of Russian history
and transcend the legacy of the Slavophiles and Orientalizers. This new trend of thought,
Eurasianism, presented itself as simultaneously a critical re-consideration of the basic tenets that
surfaced in the intellectual movements of the 19th and 20th century as well as a completely
innovative
approach.
Eurasianism was born among a group of White emigres, including both scholars and
former members of the ruling class, who fled to Europe just before the establishment of the
Soviet Union. Distancing themselves from the turbulence of revolutionary upheaval in Russia,
they set before themselves the tasks of reconsidering the various trends of thought which had
attempted to explain and rectify Russias crisis, assessing the place and role of the new Soviet
experiment in Russian history, and producing a new philosophical and historiographical
framework which could reconcile Russias new historical pivot with its long, rich, and dramatic
history. The result, in stark contrast to the deconstructive, negative, and reactionary
denunciations of Soviet Russia voiced among most Russian emigres, was a genuinely novel
school of thought which produced new conceptions of global and Russian history that by the late
1920s came to be known as Eurasianism, whose adherents christened themselves as
EurasiansorEurasianists.
Eurasianism was simultaneously a long-term historical product and a completely
innovative outlook. On the one hand, the original Eurasians continued the 19th century traditions
of viewing Russias identity as simultaneously incompatible with Westernization while being
geographically and culturally somewhere between West and East, i.e., between Europe and Asia.
11
Laruelle,2008,opcit.,pp.2-3.
7

On the other hand, the Eurasians operated within the framework of a new historiographical lens
and produced unprecedentedly unique analyses of Russias composition and situation. As a
result, Eurasianism proved to be a movement that claimed both an irrefutable and profoundly
deep rooting in Russias history as well as a school of thought which claimed to have overcome,
synthesized, or rectified all previous interpretations of Russias history and role in world order.
As is the general case of events and ideologies in Russian history, it was characterized by a
paradoxical,uniquesynthesisofcontinuityandrevolution.
Eurasianist thought was essentially linked by a common rejection of the West and a
common approach to the concept of an historically unified Eurasia, which was identified as the
large space centered around Russia roughly approximate, with certain pluses and minuses, to
the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. Rather than an oversized nation-state, a competing
imperialist superpower, the periphery of Europe, or the European vanguard of Asia, the
founding Eurasianists viewed Russia as the anchor of Eurasia, a unique civilization and even
third continent which could not be reduced to a lesser Europe, advanced Asia, or any sort
ofmerecombinationofthetwo.
The point of departure and hermeneutical heart of the Eurasianists was a rounded
rejection of the West in its philosophical, religious, economic, ethnosociological, and
socio-political dimensions. Clearing the West out of the equation on a global scale was the first
step in freeing space for Russia to rediscover itself and its surroundings as Eurasia. What is
commonly recognized to be the first significant work of the Eurasianists, Nikolay Trubetzkoys
Europe and Humanity (or Europe and Mankind), was the first step in this direction. Trubetzkoy
tackled the concept of the advanced West or superior Europe from a philosophical
perspective in denying the Wests claim to be universal and represent humanity. In place of
the omnipotent West, Trubetzkoy pointed to the specific civilizational experience of the
Romano-Germans who, by coming to view their own culture as pre-eminent, viewed the rest
of humanity as subjects to be Europeanized. Firmly rejecting any sort of categorizations of
primitive or uncivilized, Trubetzkoy essentially presented a polycentric model which,
according to him, the West had usurped with its own prejudices towards universalization. The
Romano-Germanic Wests colonization, or Europeanization, of its own peripheries as well as
other civilizations was deemed an undesirable and catastrophic process which led to (1) the
psychological dependence of a given colonized people, (2) the intensification of social conflicts
between Europeanized elites and the inertia-based resistance of the indigenous population, and
12
finally (3) the outright economic and military enslavement of the Europeanizing prey. In its
purest expression, Trubetzkoy presented a fundamental antagonism between a multi-polar,
multi-civilizational world and the imperialist project of Western Europe. In Trubetzkoys
assessment, the Wests self-identification with humanity in effect turned the rest of real humanity
into its antagonistic subjects and quite possibly its existential enemies whose very existence
13
depended on their outright confrontation with or strategic compromises with the West. The
Westernizing mission of the Russian Tsarist elite beginning with Peter the Great was classified
as precisely this negative process in the context of Russian history which ultimately led to
systemiccrisisandtheRussianRevolution.
Rejecting the West and roughly approximating its opponent in the form of the rest of
humanity, and Russia-based Eurasia in particular, the Eurasianists sought to conceptualize,
define, and analyze Eurasia and its history and future trajectory from the wide range of
perspectives presented by the diverse fields of its founding theorists. In comparative terms, the
Eurasianists works strove to affirm that Eurasia as a whole broadly corresponded to the pattern
of the Marxian definition of an individual nation, i.e. a historically constituted, stable
community of people, formed on the basis of a common language, territory, economic life, and
14
psychological make-up manifested in a common culture. From a geographical perspective, the
Eurasian continent was defined on the basis of demonstrating its geographical discontinuity with
the conventional borders of Europe and Asia and, on the contrary, outlining its essential
15
geographic, geosophical, and spatial-developmental concurrence. From a linguistic
standpoint, the unity of Eurasia was demonstrated through a teleological comparison of the tone,
correlation of palatization, and territorial continuity of Eurasias languages which pointed to an
12
Mazurek,S.,Torr,G.,2002,RussianEurasianism:
Historiosophy
and
Ideology,
Studies
in
Eastern
European
Thought,Volume54,No.1/2,pp.109-110
13
Dugin,A.,12.10.2016,ParadigmoftheEnd,
<https://eurasianist-archive.com/2016/10/12/paradigm-of-the-end/> [25.05.2017]
14
Stalin,J.,MarxismandtheNationalQuestion
,
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1913/03a.htm#s1 [18.04.2016]
15
Laruelle,2008,opcit.,p.32
9

16
interlocked, common historical evolution and direction. In terms of ethnography, the Eurasians
revealed the horizontal as opposed to the vertical (to the point of nation-states as in the case
17
of Europe) development of Eurasias diverse ethnic groups and their cultural synergy.
Religiously, the Eurasianists essentially produced analyses analogous or relatable to the
18
philosophy of Traditionalism which supposedly confirmed the primordial unity and continued,
dynamic solidarity or compatibility of Eurasias spiritual traditions. Historiographically, the
Eurasianists sought to revise the entire course of Russian history and substitute contradictions
and divergences with continuities or dialectical interactions. The arguably most dramatic
ruptures in Russian history, the period of Mongol overlordship and the Russian Revolution, were
situated in a context in which they offered particularly positive contributions rather than
negations in the context of long-term historical continuity. Thus, the Mongol conquest of Russia
was viewed as the turning point in Eurasian history in which the Russian people and its periphery
ethnic groups essentially learned the lesson of Genghis Khan and began to pattern their
societal and geographical structures along the contours traced by the Mongol Empire. Instead of
a regrettable, traumatic experience, Mongol-Tatar hegemony was seen as having awakened the
real Russia and imparting to its peoples essential ethnic, geographic, cultural, and
socio-political features imperial in form and continental in dimension. The Russian Revolution
was similarly re-identified as a cathartic experience which rescued or paradoxically produced a
rebirth of Eurasia, albeit in a radically different and questionable form veiled in Western and
Marxist terms. Overall, the examinations of the Eurasianists pointed to the essential organic
unity of Eurasia and its history as a distinct civilization, its minimal concurrence with Western,
or specifically European civilization, the negative impact of the West on Russia-Eurasia, and
19
Eurasias intrinsically minimal allowance for separatism of any kind. The ultimate suggestion
was a pan-Eurasian or supra-Eurasian nationalism or multinationalism as opposed to
16
Laruelle,opcit.,p.33.
17
Ibid,34.
18
OnTraditionalism,seeSedgwick,M.,Against
the
Modern World:
Traditionalism and
the
Secret
Intellectual
HistoryoftheTwentiethCentury(OxfordUniversity Press,
2004);
Guenon, R.,The
Crisis
of
the
Modern World
(SophiaPerennis,2004);Evola,J.,RevoltAgainst
the
Modern World(Inner
Traditions,1995);Dugin,
A.,
<http://arctogaia.org.ru/article/72 >[18.04.2016]
19
Savitsky,P.,1933, in
Dugin,A.,

,Arktogeya,Moscow(2002),p. 302.
10

individual Russian, Ukrainian, Kazakh, etc. nationalisms, and the establishment of a common
20
EurasianunionfoundedondistinctlyEurasianvaluesdeliberatedbytheEurasianistprophets.
Although the Eurasianists and their successors were fundamentally united into a common
trend of thought by this critique of the West and their promotion of the concept and state of
Eurasia, the important theoretical and practical disagreements among the classical Eurasianists
beyond their two points of unity spelled the end of the movement by the end of the 1930s. The
neo-Eurasianists who have since sought to further develop Eurasianist theses as well, despite
being comfortably shelved under the general category of the Eurasianist heritage, have
demonstrated through their radically varying methodologies and amplifications that Eurasianism
not only presents itself as a significantly diverse inquiry, but can only be restricted to the level of
a rigid ideology at its own peril. The bio-ethnological approach of Lev Gumilev, for example,
starkly contrasts with the Traditionalist approach of Dugin or even the philosophical and
epistemological vantage point of Trubetzkoy. Instead, Eurasianism should be considered as a
broad, syncretic school of thought culminating in a general analytical framework rather than a
surge of cultural fundamentalism, a Russian variety of fascism, a uniform political ideology, or a
mere recapitulation of Great Russian hegemonic nationalism. Given such parameters, it is
possible to apply Eurasianism as an interpretive framework and analytical guide in the
examination of various countries and scenarios through the very lenses that the Eurasianists
sought to define and envision Russia in particular and Eurasia as a whole. It is precisely this
quality which has contributed to the growth of Eurasianism and not its export by the Russian
Federation
orwhateverkindofresurgenceofRussianimperialism.
This essay therefore seeks to demonstrate that Eurasianism is a broad school of thought
encompassing a range of different perspectives of analysis that lend themselves towards
application. Both the convergent and divergent instances of the structure, historical evolution,
and theses of Eurasianism can be coherently understood through this lens. Moreover, this
qualification is evident in a specific, hitherto untouched case study in which we will explore
Eurasianist thought on Poland. Just as the Eurasianists applied their categories of analysis to
identify the nature and propensities of Eurasian civilization, so have they, albeit rather briefly
20
SeeTrubetzkoy,N.,1923,

in
Dugin,
A.,

,
Arktogeya,
Moscow(2002)
11

and often in passing, addressed the question of Polands civilizational place, and in the very least
left their set of analytical categories for potential application to interpreting Polands
civilizational identity juxtaposed to what they saw as Eurasia. Our research into these topics is
qualitative, i.e., theoretical, based on a survey of Eurasianist and related scholarly works and
inductive extrapolation of the insights gained therein to shed light on both the telling facets of
Eurasianism and the latters construal of Poland from Eurasianist standpoints. In the first chapter,
we will present the history and basic concepts of Eurasianism in order to highlight its nature as a
school of thought, drawing on scholarly accounts of the Eurasianist movements historical
incarnations and the Eurasianists own works. In chapter two we will proceed to systematically
expound the different categories of thought and levels of analysis which the Eurasianists
employed, basing ourselves principally in their works as well as scholarly explications of
different theoretical trends within Eurasianism. In the third chapter, we will research what the
Eurasianists thought about Poland in light of their understanding of Eurasian civilization
presented in chapter one and their conceptualizations and analytical frameworks illustrated in
chapter two. To our knowledge, this will represent the first ever research into Eurasianist
definitions of Poland, a case study which will exhibit in practice the application of the
Eurasianist school of thoughts set of parameters and concepts. In most cases, Eurasianist works
featuring remarks on Poland can be directly consulted while, admittedly, in some instances, the
lack of direct Eurasianist commentary on the matter will demand that we ourselves exercise the
use of the Eurasianists analytical deductions for the first time where they themselves have not.
However, we see this not as subjective speculation, but as even positively reinforcing our
proposed understanding of Eurasianism through its practical application. Lastly, in conclusion,
we will summarize the results of our study and propose venues for further research into
EurasianistthoughtingeneralanditsperceptionsofPolandinparticular.
12

CHAPTER1.THEEURASIANISTSANDTHEIREURASIANISMSFROMSOFIATO
HYPERBOREA
The history of Eurasianism as a strain of thought and the paths traversed by its theorists
and associated movements constitute perhaps one of the most telling facets as to the principal
character of the Eurasian outlook. A brief overview of the historical trajectory of Eurasianism
has the potential to vindicate approaching the many connections and entanglements of
21
Eurasianism as a movement and a set of ideas which can lend itself as a diverse analytical
arsenal,asopposedtoachroniclingoftheprogressivecanonizationofadogmaticideology.
1.1ThegenesisofclassicalEurasianism
Eurasianism and the Eurasianists revealed themselves to the world in the summer of 1920
when four prominent Russian emigres, Petr Savitsky (1895-1968), Nikolay Trubetzkoy
(1890-1938), Petr Suvchinsky (1882-1985), and Georges Florovsky (1893-1979) met in Sofia,
Bulgaria to discuss the collapse of the Russian Empire, the Russian Civil War, and the meaning
of the Russian Revolution from a long and deep historical and philosophical perspective. The
intense discussions between these emigre intellectuals culminated in the 1921 publication of
Exodus to the East: Premonitions and Accomplishments - The Affirmation of the Eurasians, a
kind of proto-manifesto and self-declaration which represented a creative response of the
22
Russian national consciousness to the Russian Revolution and the ensuing civil war and an
inauguration of the search for a rectified understanding of the history of the Russian people and
peoples of the Russian world who they resolved are in essence neither Europeans nor Asians
23
but Eurasians. In the foreword, the authors explicitly clarified that they were appealing not to
21
Bassin,M.,Glebov,S.,Laruelle,M.,2015,
Between Europe andAsia:
The
Origins,
Theories,
and
Legacies
of
RussianEurasianism,UniversityofPittsburgh Press,
pp.
2.
22
Zyuganov,G.,1997,MyRussia:ThePolitical Autobiography of
Gennady Zyuganov ,
M.E.
Sharpe,
Armonk,New
York,pp.71-72.
23
Florensky,G.,Savitsky,P.,Suvchinsky,P.,
Trubetzkoy, N.,
1921, in

.
. <http://nevmenandr.net/eurasia/1921-isxod.php >
{13.06.2016]
13

Russia or Russian nationalism alone, but to the whole circle of the peoples of the Eurasian
24
world,inbetweenwhomtheRussianpeopleoccupiesthecentralposition.
The very title of the compilation of articles was a symbolic play on words, in which the
Russian term iskhod (exit, outcome, exile, or solution) might have been employed to
stress simultaneously the emigres exile to the West, Russias exodus into a new historical
period or outcome, and the efforts of the Eurasianists to find a solution to Russian history in
25
appealing to the East rather than to the Western-European world. This was perhaps
immediately symbolized by the publications featuring of texts written in both the pre-1918 and
post-revolution Russian script. Exodus to the East featured ten articles, each of which appealed
to a different facet of Eurasia and Eurasianism from an equally unique standpoint, whether
theological, philosophical, geographical, geopolitical, cultural, ethnological, or political.
Following Trubetzkoys publication out of Sofia of Europe and Humanity a year earlier which
sought to deconstruct the universalism of the West, the Eurasianists now sought in Exodus to
the East to begin the construction of the alternative peculiarity and relative universalism of
Eurasia.
In the endeavor of Exodus to the East, Trubetzkoy posited that the false nationalism of
the Western model intricately connected with the Europeanization of Russia initiated by Peter
the Great contradicted the essence of the Russian people, which could in no way be reduced to
the nation-state status of its Romano-Germanic counterparts. The supranational vision of the
Slavophiles was similarly incorrect according to Trubetzkoy, as they habitually forgot that our
brothers (if not by language and faith, then by blood, character, and culture) are not only the
Slavs, but also the Turanians, and that Russia has long united in the shade of its statehood a
26
significant part of the Turanian East. Following both a typological discussion of nationalism
and an ethnographic survey of the many peoples who make up the Russian element,
Trubetzkoy affirmed that a true nationalism, entirely based on self-consciousness and
demanding in the name of this self-consciousness a restructuring of Russian culture in the spirit
24
Florensky,G.,Savitsky,P.,Suvchinsky,P.,Trubetzkoy,N.,opcit.
25
Laruelle,opcit.,p.20.
26
T rubetzkoy,N.,1920,()in
..
<http://nevmenandr.net/eurasia/1921-isxod.php {13.06.2016]
>
14

of self-identityshould be built. And to this end is needed an about-turn in the consciousness of

27
the Russian intelligentsia At the center of this new nationalism and new intelligentsia was to
stand a rectified view of the ethnographic zone of Eurasia. The chance for this new, Eurasian
conscience
ofRussia,moreover,had
beenrevealedbyitsrevolution.
For Petr Savitsky, the Russian Revolution opened a new historical chapter for
Russia-Eurasia which, despite its Bolshevik veil, nonetheless had re-opened the question of
Russias paradoxical syncretism of West and East and positioned Russia as becoming the
28
ideological focal point of the world whose revolutionary eruption, he claimed, was greater in
scale and gravity than the French Revolution. Re-awakened Russia, with its new, radical
economic self-determination, central position, and unified diversity, would become a paradigm,
behind which the uprising colonies of the world would follow, in building a distinctly
continental and land centered organism opposed to the ocean or sea type of
29
Anglo-Saxon colonialism. In a cultural sense as well, from the perspective of the migration of
peoples and the transmission of cultural types, Russia-Eurasia was destined to come to represent
30
not only the revival, but the rectification, of the pre-European Old World. These historic
propositions, in Savitskys appraisal, demanded a recognition of the unique Eurasian character
of Russia on the one hand and, on the other, a non-dogmatic examination of the latent, or rather
disguised, potentials of the nominally Marxist revolution, whose real driving force was the
religious dispositionof the Russian and non-Russian masses [which] has acted as the
31
movement
andbreathbywhichBolshevismlives.
Suvchinskys religious contribution consisted of positing that the Russian Revolution was
not defined by the revolutionary energy of Russian communism, but by the historical
32
predestination of the entire Russian people over the course of tragedy of which the Russian
27
Trubetzkoy,N.,1920, in

.
.<http://nevmenandr.net/eurasia/1921-isxod.php {13.06.2016]
>
28
Savitsky,P.,1920,in
..
<http://nevmenandr.net/eurasia/1921-isxod.php >{13.06.2016]
29
Savitsky,P.,1920,(),in.
.<http://nevmenandr.net/eurasia/1921-isxod.php {13.06.2016]
>
30
Ibid.
31
Ibid
32
Suvchinsky,P.,1920,in..
<http://nevmenandr.net/eurasia/1921-isxod.php >{13.06.2016]
15

people and its repenting intellectuals would rediscover Russias Orthodox Christian prophetic
33
mystery. The apocalyptic torture of the revolution would signal a return to the era of faith.
For Florovsky as well, the positivist, progressivist, and other Western contaminants of the
revolution were to be paradoxically refuted by the purification of the darkened Russian soul
through this tribulation which had drawn Russia into an eschatological parody of the West.
Russia was not in fact disappearing in the face of a still standing and stabilizing West, as
many of its patriots and Whites had feared the revolution and civil war meant, but was in fact
reviving, with a fresh urgency, the task of clarifying the nature and mission of Great Russia
which had for too long been submerged in the pities, parodies, and dead-ends of revolutionary
34
Westernmodernity.
The Eurasianists paradoxical combination of revolutionary radicalism and
35
conservatism and ensuing discussions and correspondences drew a number of new emigre
intellectuals into their fledgling milieu. Such prestigious figures as Roman Jakobson
(1896-1982), George Vernadsky (1887-1973), Dmitry Sviatopolk-Mirsky (1890-1939), Nikolai
Alekseev (1879-1964), Lev Karsavin (1882-1952), and Vladimir Ilin (1891-1974) joined the
movement which by 1925 included approximately one hundred members engaged in an array of
intense activities: congresses; meetings; lecture series; weekly seminars in Paris, Prague,
36
Brussels, and Belgrade; and the publication of newspapers and journals. The Eurasianists not
only came to stand at the forefront of the Russian emigre scene, but also cooperated with various
other intellectual trends, such as the initiatives led by Nikolai Berdiaev, attracted Russians and
Russophile youth throughout Europe, and even drew attention from the Soviet leadership. The
Eurasianists contributed to the famous literary journal Versty, engaged in critical debate and
wrote articles for the organ of Russian religious thought, Put, published ten volumes of The
Eurasianist Annals, thirteen issues of The Eurasianist Chronicle, a number of single-author
books, and produced several compilations of articles, polemics, propaganda booklets, and
33
Suvchinsky,P.,1920,opcit.
34
Florovsky,G.,1920,in .

.

<http://nevmenandr.net/eurasia/1921-isxod.php {13.06.2016]
>
35
B assin,M.,Glebov,S.,Laruelle,M.,2015,opcit.,p.9.
36
L aruelle,2008,opcit.,p.20.
16

37
leaflets. In their publications, academic events, and polemics, each of the Eurasianists sought to
elaborate and propagate their visions and construe Eurasias totality through a range of visible
38
phenomena in language, culture, history, geography in conjunction with the treatment of
deeper philosophical and theological questions related to the space, spirit, and historic role of the
Eurasianthirdcontinent.
1.2Thespaceandplace-development(mestorazvitie)ofEurasia
To understand Eurasia in terms of its spatial relations was the core intellectual activity
39
of the movements geographer and economist, Petr Savitskii. In the Eurasianists and Savitsky
in particulars quest to outline Eurasia as both a unique space and idea, geography, and even
geosophy, was one of the first and most elaborate venues of Eurasianist analysis. Eurasia was
defined as a constructive category not only in terms of its unique geographical situation which
40
earned it more ground for calling Russia rather than China the middle state , but also in the
effect which this space had on the formation of its unique civilization. In terms of the former
realm, it was argued that Eurasia, by virtue of the distribution of its steppes, woods, mountains,
climate, soil, flora, etc., represented its own zone separate and distinct from both geographical
Europe and conventional geographical Eurasia. The patterns, symmetries, and coincidences
of Russia-Eurasias geographical features lent it the quality of a third continent, the central one
at that - Heartland - which accordingly translated into the formation of a horizontal, special
world conducive to the cultural, linguistic, ethnic, and geopolitical development unique to Russia
in its Eurasian character. This geographic territory, which essentially matches the borders of the
former Russian Empire, with certain minus including those non-Eurasian states as Poland,
Finland, and the Baltic states, was historically united in the form of Russia-Eurasia precisely
because of its special correspondence, and in turn impacted Eurasian identity. Unlike the
37
Laruelle,2008,opcit.,,21.
38
Bassin,M.,Glebov,S.,Laruelle,M.,2015,opcit.,p.9.
39
Ibid,68-69.
40
Savitsky,P.,10.10.2016,TheGeographicalandGeopoliticalFoundationsofEurasianism,
<https://eurasianist-archive.com/2016/10/10/the-geographical-and-geopolitical-foundations-of-eurasianism/>
[20.02.2017]
17

Romano-Germanic world with its disruptive vertical evolution of nations and eventual
territorial conquest, Eurasias territorial integrity was conducive to the horizontal, syncretic,
common-binding of its peoples in a common historical process and fate, thus representing the
antithesis of separatism. In historical practice, this meant that Eurasias territory organically
fostered interactions between peoples which ultimately led to their linguistic, ethnic, cultural,
and geopolitical unified diversity characteristic of the historical multinational incarnations of
Russia-Eurasia which bear a territorially-related cyclical, fluid development, as opposed to what
was understood as typically European, Westphalian evolution along nation-state lines. This
fundamental geosophy of Eurasia formed one of the points of unity of the Eurasianists
approach to defining, defending, and imparting their subject with its specific role, the result
being a geographical Eurasia as a systemic, regular, and hermetic totality which could be
41
discussedinscientificterms.
However, as a broad school of thought, the Eurasianists had their share of disagreements
as to the precise outlining of this territory and the question of its expansion and retraction. The
first, major point of disagreement was whether this Eurasian landmass ultimately relegated
Russia-Eurasia to an isolationist role or to its own relatively universal imperial mission. Various
Eurasianists disagreed on whether Eurasias uniqueness unto itself necessitated its own relative
universalism, albeit pluralistic in nature, which would be waged against Europe and Asia, or if
Eurasias circularity meant that it was to be politically isolationist. Even the very fusion vs.
synthesis of Eurasian territory between Asia and Europe was disputed, as, for instance, in
Vernadskys countering of Savitsky with the thesis that [Eurasia is constituted] by the oriental
42
part of Europe and the northern part of Asia. In connection with this, ambiguity prevailed as to
the preeminence of certain axes of Russia-Eurasias geographical expression, such as between
the north-east and north-south axes, center vs. periphery and relevance of the steppe vs.
that of the Siberian tundras. Territorial specificities were general points of divergences, including
not only the varying subtraction and addition of this or that former imperial territory, such as
Alaska or Bessarabia, but also the general differences between the European and Asian
borders of Russia-Eurasia. This translated into, on the one hand, lingering differences in
41
op
cit.,
p..
69.
42
Ibid.
18

emphases on the either the Slavic and Orthodox components, which dragged Eurasia
westward, or the Turanic elements which drew it further into Central Asia and eastward. While
the Eurasianists as a whole stood for a soil above blood explanation, where this left Russias
historical association with the Slavs and its Orthodox brothers and sisters in Europe was met
with different theses. The role of Siberia itself, the largest part of Russia, was disputed between
the Eurasianists as to its different functions and geographical classification. Overall, an
ambiguous, indecisive orientalism prevailed which, on the one hand, praised Eurasia for its
vast expanses and diverse cultural types while, on the one hand, refrained from codifying
Eurasias eastward borders. Marlene Laruelle describes this as the juxtaposition of porous vs.
hermetic borders which plagued the Eurasianists otherwise convinced geographical
conceptualizations.
1.3TheEurasianpeopleandtheirstatehoodinhistory
Based on their general geographical outline of Eurasia and its organic unity, the
Eurasianists traced their chronicling of Eurasian statehood and proposed various archetypal
conceptions of governance which were supposed to accord with Eurasias space and history. The
great Eurasian space, accordingly, was conceived not merely as a geographical peculiarity in
itself, but a subject with its own logic, history, identity, and forms of superstructure and base
which could only be properly understood within the Eurasian context. For them, Eurasian
civilization was characterized by a continuity of certain patterns pertaining to its historical
development, people, and statehood which distinguished it from other civilizations, such as the
Romano-Germaniconewithwhichit
sooftencameintoconflict.
In a nutshell, Eurasian identity and its historical expression was characterized by three
fundamental factors (conditioned to a large extent by the above-mentioned geographical
circumstances): (1) the synthesis of the many peoples inhabiting Eurasia into a composite people
with a common civilizational experience; (2) the continuity of this civilizations distinctions
throughout history; and (3) the propensities derived therein of this construct towards (a)
ideocratic rule and (b) a great power mission. The Eurasian people was seen as Slavdoms
19

43
cohabitation with Turandom as the central fact of Russian history , at the center of which the
Russian people stood as the historically unifying force. The Eurasianists posited, in quite a
historiographically innovative and revolutionary fashion, that the experience of the Mongol
Yoke was not in fact a negative event, but rather the defining historical experience which both
imparted the Russian people with a consciousness of their Eurasian, continental identity as well
as contributed to the ethnic, social, economic, and political formation of Russia-Eurasia. In this
sense, the Tatar subjugation of Kievan Rus was not a difficult period or a blank page in the
nations history but, on the contrary, the founding moment of an autonomous Russian culture,
44
the expression ofthe uniqueness of Russias fate which, as follows, was to take on a
distinctly Eurasian culture determined to replace that of the Mongol imperial consolidation of
Eurasia. Although such surges had inevitably existed and been repeated in a series of rhythms
through the history of Eurasias inhabitants, the Tatar period represented the most impactful
45
revolution, for without the Tatar period Russia would not exist because Muscovy was born
46
of the Mongol Empire as from a mothers bosom. The newly awakened Russian people,
synthesizing the Turanian-Mongolian traditions of Eurasias subjugation with their own
messianic Byzantine mission (Third Rome) and gathering together the diverse peoples of the
continent, were thus thrusted into the historic role of replacing the Mongol Empire. This
revolution, moreover, and the organic fluidity with which it proceeded in the gathering of
Russian lands (and others) was understood as based on the prefigured principles of Eurasian
governance and culture. These distinct features, reinforced by the Mongol yoke, included a
habitual authoritarian mode of governance in the special form of ideocracy, which the
Eurasianists coined to mean the rule of a guiding ideology crystallized in a popular autocracy.
Whether in the form of the United Empire of Mankind pursued by the Mongol hordes, the
katechonical mission of Muscovy as the Third Rome, or in the guise of communism, Eurasia was
seen as a civilization fundamentally driven and unified by a ruling idea which, ideally in
fully-fledged form, would come to be that of Eurasianism. Ideocracy was in turn built upon and
dialectically emphasized the essentially collectivist disposition of Russian-Eurasian society
43
44
Ibid,43.
45
Ibid.
46
Ibid.
20

which, moreover, was identified as fundamentally conservative and holistic as opposed to

individualistic and atomized (as in the West). These characteristics were considered to be
continuous and reflective throughout the history of the Eurasian space and found in their most
systematizedandconcentratedformintheRussiancore.
While the Eurasianists coalesced around these fundamental precepts of the people,
history, and statehood of Eurasia, their proscriptions for the ideal organization of this civilization
along Eurasianist lines differed in form and content. Perhaps the most glaring divergence was
in the various Eurasianists perceptions of history itself. While many adhered, for example, to the
cyclical or rhythmic explanation of Eurasian history, some asserted that any inclination
47
toward Eurasianism is an inclination toward modernity. In terms of the ethnic formation of the
Eurasian people, emphases varied as to the relative contributions of the Slavic vs. Turanian
components with significant implications as to the ethnic and cultural objectives of a Eurasian
power.
As for the very system of Eurasian government itself, only the most general proposal was
concurred upon: We must look for the future forms of Russian statehood in the principle of
peoples autocracy, which optimally combines popular sovereignty with the principle of peoples
48
will. Only the combination of these two principles can create a strong and organic regime.
Beyond their unanimous rejection of liberal democracy and their proposal of a strong, organic
state which would in one way or another represent a third way form of political and
socio-economic organization corresponding to the conditions and habits of Eurasian civilization,
alternative, sometimes contradictory proposals found voice among Eurasianists and their various
groupings. Some essentially accepted Soviet-style socialism and even Marxian-envisioned
49
communism as a method of managementwaiting to be vested with Eurasianism whose
valuable critique and potential to overcome the woes of Western capitalism only needed to be rid
of its materialism. Others opted for a kind of revitalized, popular monarchy, while especially
popular among the Eurasianists was a vague, yet nonetheless historically rooted, conception of
the organic distribution of governance between different estates, corporations, councils, and
47
48
Ibid,29.
49
Ibid,28.
21

functional structures existing at different levels which was developed on the basis of social
50
self-government and on the peasant world all under the auspice of a Eurasianist ruling class.
Some of the Eurasianists were intrigued by Italian Fascism, which they identified as an
ideocratic prototype. Petr Savitsky, on the other hand, strove to comprehensively develop his
own blueprint for a holistic, Orthodox-based economy, which he called a blessed economy or
51
Masterocracy,whichwasrejectedbytheotherEurasianists.
1.4Parisvs.Prague:ThefailedBolshevizationofEurasianism
Tellingly enough, the height of the Eurasianists intellectual bustling came to coincide
with the schools fragmentation and disarray. The rich diversity and novel profundity of the
Eurasians individual and collective analyses, along with their comparatively vast range of
activities, collapsed as a viable project at precisely the moment when their philosophical
contemplation and historical approach were confronted with forming a temporal political
perspective and transforming into an ideology and organized political force. The most pressing
issue of the day, the question of practical relations with the Soviet Union and according political
deductions, forced a split upon the movement. While all of the Eurasianists, based on their very
own historiographical framework, recognized the continuity of Russian history and the need to
address the reality of the Soviet project constructively, the dilemma of criticizing, supporting, or
straightforwardly opposing the Soviet socialist project became the single most divisive issue.
This controversy posed not only theoretical complications to the Eurasianists, but practically
severedtheirpersonalrelationswithoneanother.
This division was highlighted in the emergence of two distinct groups who came to
represent opposing trends with different fates. In 1925, Florovsky, Karsavin, Ilin,
Sviatopolk-Mirsky and others settled in Paris upon academic invitation. The Paris group which
subsequently took shape displayed a more politically oriented character and, hand in hand with
this, a more positive approach to the Soviet Union. In 1928, the Eurasianists who were gathered
50
Dugin,2014,opcit.,p.21.
51
op
cit., 109.
p.
22

in the Parisian suburb of Clamart established a newspaper, Eurasia, which endeavored to link
52
Eurasianisms historical conception of Russia with an awakening Marxist political conscience.
In practice, this meant that the newspaper and its Belgian version, The Eurasianist, often merely
reprinted articles from Soviet Pravda. The Paris group established contact with Maksim Gorky
and several of its proponents, including Sviatopolk-Mirsky, ultimately returned to the USSR in
their quest to bridge the Eurasianist conceptualizations of Russia and the revolution with the
realities of Bolshevik rule and Soviet statecraft. The attempt to reconcile Eurasian theses with the
metabolization of Marxism in the USSR and the Bolshevik experience led these representatives
to advocate the formation of a Eurasianist political party modeled along the Bolshevik structure
in which being a Eurasiaian would be a matter of party membership and a political leadership
would define the principles, tactics, and strategy of Eurasianism whose political vanguard was to
prepare for the role of, as the Eurasianists envisioned, replacing the ruling communist party in
the Soviet Union. Attempts to table the issue of forming a political organization at congresses
and elect a leadership mired the movement in vicious disagreements and infighting which caused
the resignation of many of the founding fathers from Eurasianist projects, including Trubetzkoy,
and the autonomous drifting of the Belgian unit in their own direction following their
denunciation of right-wing Eurasianism which increasingly borrowed Soviet polemical
rhetoric. The infiltration of this grouping by the Soviet State Political Directorate in the mid
1920s and the eventual cooperation of some of its members with Soviet intelligence organs for
sponsorship further fueled this ire and division. This conglomerate of left-wing Eurasianists,
the extremity of which gravitated towards and contributed to National-Bolshevism, saw its
notable proponents return to the Soviet Union. These individuals, however, wound up in labor
camps or in front of firing squads during the political civil war of the purges in the mid-late
1930s.
The second grouping which was based out of Prague and included such founding fathers
as Trubetzkoy, Alekseev, and Savitsky, maintained a theoretical and practical rejection of
Marxism and the Soviet socialist project. Instead, they pursued what has been classified as the
scholarly approach to Eurasianism which emphasized the philosophical, and especially
52
23

theological, facets of Eurasianism as opposed to voluntarist syncretization with existing political

movements. When faced with the rising political currents of the day, these Eurasianists remained
rather ambiguous and informal in their assessments. After all, they viewed Eurasianism as an
organic resurgence and rectification of the formulation of Russian identity which included
numerous vantage points and nuanced conceptualizations rather than a set of ideals supposed to
becanonizedinanorganizedmovementseekingpoliticalpower.
The division of the Eurasianist movement over approaches and political allegiances
severed the movements internal affinity and sent it reeling in retreat by the late 1920s. Polemics
and infighting over the nature and goals of the trend busied the movement into the 1930s. In
1935, a resolution proposing to call the Clamart and Belgian groupings socialist Eurasianists
and the others original Eurasianists or ideocratic Eurasianists rang the death bell of the
formerly loosely coalesced movement. The fanatic supporters of left-wing Eurasianism and
National Bolshevism left for the USSR, the social networks of the movement developed over
the course of its intellectual endeavors dried up, and only the Prague grouping remained
nominally and practically Eurasianist. Trubetzkoy passed away in 1938, Jakobson and
Florovsky moved to the United States and pursued academic careers, and Savitsky remained
nearly alone in Prague. The Second World War spelled the end of classical Eurasianism and
the Eurasian movement, leaving only Vernadsky (who also relocated to the United States), the
only original figure who continued to develop a Eurasian vision of Russian history after 1945.
The political division of the Eurasianists which ultimately paralyzed their activities and
irreparably split their movement to the point of its dissipation should not be underestimated. The
Eurasianists had developed a unique, broad intellectual school which sought to interpret Russian
history and reformulate the mission of the Eurasian continent from a vast range of
philosophical, scholarly, and political approaches. As such, they did not really have a common
53
ideological platform; it was an atmosphere, an outlook on the world. Taken as a broad school
of thought, the movement was lively, productive, and credible. When attempted to be corralled
into the confines of a political party or ideology, the individuals and theses united by the concept
of Eurasia found themselves at odds with each other. This itself suggests that Eurasianism
53
Laruelle,2008,opcit.,p..21.
24

must be viewed as a school of thought, an intellectual trend containing a diverse arsenal of

analytical frameworks and theses which is to be further confirmed by the later experiences of
Eurasianismtowhichweshallnowturn.
1.5ThefirstlastEurasianist:LevGumilev
This definitive nature of Eurasianism was also evidenced by the resuscitation of

Eurasianist thought from within the Soviet Union by the scholar and dissident Lev Gumilev
(1912-1992) who himself claimed to be and is considered by some to be the last Eurasianist on
account of his correspondence with Savitsky and the apparent connection between his works and
Vernadskys. Although this lineage is controversial and some scholars suggest that Gumilev
was instead the first neo-Eurasianist or merely a lone scholar who later sought to capitalize
upon the intellectual label of the Eurasianists to legitimize his own works, the argument can also
be made that Gumilevs works lacked open references to the Eurasianists because of Soviet
censorship and his already dangerous dissident background. Gumilev can be considered a
contributor to and member of Eurasianism as a whole insofar as he firmly rejected the West as a
reference point for Russia and took Eurasia as his basic understanding of nature and place of
the larger Russia-centered civilization and sought to further elaborate and complement this
thesis. Moreover, Gumilevs theses themselves point to the reality that Eurasianism could not be
consideredasolidifiedideologyinanysenseoftheword.
The most striking facet of Gumilevs thought is its irreconcilable contradiction of the
metaphysical, idealistic, and religious undertones of the first Eurasianists. Gumilev was prone
to consider eschatological views (explicit or disguised) as expressions of a decadent stage of an
ethnos development, as chimeras which emerge upon approaching the threshold of the death of
54
cultures and peoples. Rather, Gumilev developed an essentially biological and natural
determinism in which history has been driven by that very force of things that exists in history
55
independently of our will and shapes the patterns of the historical process. For him, global and
54
Dugin,12.10.2016,opcit.
55
L aruelle,2008,opcit.,p.61.
25

Eurasian history is merely lapses of time in which ethnic groups, which are not only biological,
56
but also physical and chemical, that is, part and parcel of planetary patterns , which Gumilev
termed the biosphere, are born, grow, mature, reach their height, decline, and die just like any
living organism. Gumilevs key theories centered around the explanation of ethnogenesis and the
predetermined stages of an ethnos development, some of which, according to his key x factor
conception, are endowed with the chemical energy of passionarity (passionarnost) that can
yieldsuper-ethnoiorevenmega-ethnoiwhoestablishmassivecivilizationalconstructs.
Gumilev, as a Eurasianist, took Eurasia as his subject of inquiry and endeavored to
illuminate its historical processes. Thus, he writes: The Great Steppe is a geographic totality,
inhabited by diverse peoples with different economic structures, religions, social institutions, and
more. Nevertheless, all its neighbors have always perceived it as a kind of unified entity,
although neither ethnographers, nor historians, nor sociologists have been able to determine the
57
content of the dominant principle. To this end, Gumilev applied his biospheric and
ethnogenetic theories to the history of Eurasia to demonstrate that the synthesis of the Eurasian
civilization was driven by the convergence of the Russian and Steppic super-ethnoi. Eurasia
was unique because, given the fact that ethnoi are closed biosocial systems which can only mix
at the peril of disappearing, the super-ethnoi of the Turkic and Slavic masses, imbued with
passionarity and pulling in their wake the other minor ethnoi of Eurasia, established a unique,
symbiotic equilibrium, or positive complementarity, whose geographic environment and
biological features were conducive to its preservation in a unified whole. In a certain sense,
Gumilev overlaid his theory upon the coincidences and the processes which the Eurasianists had
analyzed from their own differing perspectives. Gumilev insisted that the unique biospheric and
ethnogenetic product represented by Russia will be saved only as a Eurasian power, and only
58
through Eurasianism. Accordingly, he dedicated much of archaeological and ethnographical
investigations to the steppes and Central Asia, where he sought to highlight the role of the
Turaniansuper-ethnosintheformationofEurasianarchetypes.
56
57
Ibid,71.
58
Ibid,73.
26

1.6SacredgeographyandtheEurasianmission:AlexanderDugin
By the end of Gumilevs life and the at-last uncensored publication and increasing
popularity of his works, a parallel development gave Eurasianism a new lease on political and
intellectual life in the form of neo-Eurasianism, which emerged as one of the most powerful
forces of the patriotic opposition in the last days of the Soviet Union and 1990s. As the Soviet
paradigm found itself in the throes of a fatal crisis and as ideas long thought dead reared their
heads in dissident-cum-opposition circles, Eurasianism was excavated by a number of
intellectuals who saw the Eurasian eclipse of Soviet communism at hand and sought to ready a
Eurasianist movement capable of intellectually and politically hegemonizing the new anti-liberal
opposition forces of both left and right. [S]ince the early 1990s, Neo-Eurasianism has never
been anything like a unified force or ideology; rather, it is a motley and fragmented constellation
59
of people with competing ambitions. Over the course of the 1990s and early 2000s, disparate
politicians and marginal thinkers brandished the callsign of neo-Eurasianism and contributed
their own systematizations and prognoses of its applicability. The single most prominent,
rigorous, and ultimately influential of them all, however, who would come to be known as the
founding father of neo-Eurasianism, was Alexander Dugin (1962 -). Alexander Dugin has come
to be recognized as the nearly undisputed head of the contemporary, international Eurasianist
movement in both its most politically influential and intellectually rigorous expressions.
Although the exact categorization of Alexander Dugins political thought and his precise
60
approach to, or from, Eurasianism remains a controversy among scholars of Eurasianism , his
brand of Eurasianism has become not only the most popular in Russia today, but has gathered
animmenseinternationalfollowinginbothintellectualcirclesandthehallsofpoliticalpower.
Dugins Eurasianist legacy is predicated on two fundamental fronts: the philosophical
and scholarly revitalization of Eurasianist thought, and the construction of a formidable force
which rose from the confines of marginality to a movement with direct access to and influence
on political actors and processes in Eurasia. The significance of Dugins contribution lies in his,
59
60
SeeLaruelle,M.,2006,AleksandrDugin:ARussianVersionoftheEuropeanRadicalRight?,Woodrow
WilsonInternationalCenterforScholars,Kennan Institute,
OccasionalPaper#294.
27

on the one hand, foundation of Eurasianism on the philosophy of Traditionalism of Rene Guenon
and Julius Evola and, on the other hand, his categorization and alignment of Eurasianist
postulates with other existing terminologies and frameworks which have lent it the rigor of
scholarly reputability and flexible employment in the midst of diverse academic, intellectual, and
political milieus. The most striking foundation of Alexander Dugins Eurasianist conception is
his imbuing of the subject of Eurasia and its role with Traditionalism. Based on an intrinsically
anti-modern worldview and an operation with sacred categories, Dugin sought to portray Eurasia
not merely as its own civilization, but as the heir of traditional sacrality which formed the heart
61
of its civilizational mission. This Russo-centric Traditionalism outlined in his works of the
1990s such as Mysteries of Eurasia, posited that Russia-Eurasia was none other than the original
primordial center of Hyperborea whose mission entailed not only the maintenance of its own
sacred civilization but the restoration of the sacred in opposition to modernity on a global scale.
What the original Eurasianists saw in terms of geography, ethnography, linguistics, and
anthropology, Dugin analyzed in terms of sacred geography, mythological races, nirukta,
and eschatology. What the classical Eurasianists saw as the relative uniqueness of Eurasias
religious, spiritual, and ideological thought, was conceptualized by Dugin as the esotericism of
the Eurasian Tradition which, although concentrated in the form of Russia-Eurasia, represents a
global revolt against modernity. The eschatological and Traditionalist foundations of Dugins
thought find expression in his esoteric formulation of the mission of Eurasian civilization: The
meaning of Russia is that through the Russian people will be realized the last thought of God, the
thought of the End of the WorldWe are uprooting the accursed Tree of Knowledge. With it
62
will perish the Universe. For Dugin, Eurasia is not merely a special continent and civilization,
but the vanguard of anti-modernity whose sacred impulses stretching back to pre-history impart
it with an eschatological mission of realizing the refutation of the modern world and the return to
salvational Tradition. Eurasianists, therefore, are not only representatives of the peoples
61
Lasecki,R.,Paradygmatgeopolitycznywobec paradygmatu etnopolitycznego:
Aleksandr
Dugin
i
ruch
identytarystyczny
<http://www.4pt.su/pl/content/paradygmat-geopolityczny-wobec-paradygmatu-etnopolitycznego-aleksandr-dugin-i-
ruch>[20.02.2017]
62
12.05.15,<https://snob.ru/profile/11778/blog/92317?v=1461934677> [13.06.2016]
28

inhabiting the continent of Eurasia. Eurasianists are all those free and creative personalities who
63
recognizethevalueoftradition.
Parallel to this Traditionalization of Eurasianism, Dugin institutionalized Eurasianism
in the framework of historical schools of thought. In his monumental Foundations of
Geopolitics
, Dugin classified Eurasianism as essentially the Russian school of geopolitics
which, in his The Last War of the World-Island: The Geopolitics of Contemporary Russia, he
uses to trace the history of Russia-Eurasia as the geopolitical pole of Continentalism, Land
and Heartland whose geopolitical propensities coincide with those described by the thinkers of
geopolitics and Carl Schmitt. By lending Eurasianism the quality of a systematization of Russian
geopolitics, he concludes that a geopolitical apperception of Russia shows that Eurasianism is
the most qualified geopolitical deciphering of Russian history. Eurasianism as a geopolitical and
traditional project is thus opposed to Atlanticism and Russia-Eurasias minimal geopolitical
program is establishing multipolarity. In his capacity as a professor at Moscow State
University and the founder of the Center for Conservative Studies, he applied Eurasianism to and
equipped it with the terminology of such fields as international relations and sociology. In
addition to the Traditionalization and geopoliticization of Eurasianism, Dugin offers a
categorizing model which situates Eurasianism in the political category of the Third Way or
64
Conservative Revolution. In terms of political science, this means that Dugin traced
Eurasianism as a philosophical prelude to an ideology which is analogous to many of the
precepts of the Third Way as situated in a Eurasian context and has its broad European
65
counterpart in the form of the school of thought known as the European New Right. He thus
associates the left of Eurasianism with National Bolshevism and its right with the Third
Way. Dugins political categorization of Eurasianism thus situates it as a hermeneutical tool
which can inform, while synthesizing parts of, anti-liberal ideologies of both left and right
insofar as they accord with the civilizational features of Eurasia and its geopolitical and
traditional impulse. Proceeding from his variety of understanding Eurasianism and the
63
Savin,L.,10.10.2016,Eurasianisminthe
Context
of
the
21st
Century
<https://eurasianist-archive.com/2016/10/10/eurasianism-in-the-context-of-the-21st-century/> [20.02.2017]
64
65
SeeOMeara,M.,2013,NewCulture,NewRight:Anti-LiberalisminPostmodernEurope,Arktos,London.
29

associations he draws with it, Dugin launched his own project in cooperation with a diverse
range of political movements for the articulation of a Fourth Political Theory which is
supposed to incorporate the illuminations of Eurasianism in an ideological, philosophical, and
socio-political struggle against modernity synthesizing, and transcending, traditional notions of
66
leftandright.
Besides his rigorous intellectual contributions to the Eurasian school, Dugins
significance lies in his construction and guiding of the contemporary Eurasianist movement in
the former Soviet space to new heights of academic and political influence and international
networking. Although the swift and intense rise of his political career is a subject which is
beyond our scope, it would suffice to outline the basic parameters of his involvement in forming
a relatively active Eurasianist movement, something which the classical Eurasianists themselves
failed to do. Beginning with underground circles in the 1980s, Dugin disseminated his revival
and transformation of Eurasianism among the individuals and groups who would later form the
patriotic opposition to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the liberal forces which subsequently
assumed power in the Russian Federation. In the 1990s, Dugin acted in a distinctly
Traditionalist manner in joining and attempting to influence various groups on both the
ultra-nationalist right, such as Pamyat, and the patriotic communist left, represented by the
Communist Party of the Russian Federation (for whom he helped author the new party manifesto
along left Eurasianist lines), before moving to co-found the National Bolshevik Party. In
parallel with his efforts to influence existing and emerging political organizations and guide the
National Bolshevik movement in a Traditionalist-Eurasianist direction, Dugins geopolitical
elaborations earned him recognition and contacts in the upper echelons of the Russian security
services and politics, eventually becoming the advisor to the Speaker of the Duma. As a lecturer,
radio host, editor of various publications, and intellectual guest in Russia and abroad, Dugin
steadily developed intellectual and political contacts until he founded the Pan-Russian Social
Movement Eurasia in 2001. Within a year, the movement was reformatted into the political
party Eurasia. By 2003, however, the party initiative was abandoned because, in Dugins
words: As the first Eurasianists had predicted, the format of a political party became an obstacle
66
SeeDugin,A.,2012,TheFourthPoliticalTheory,Arktos,London.
30

67
to the further development of Eurasianist ideology. Thus, in November 2003, the International
Eurasian Movement was founded as a broad collaborative movement with representative
68
structures in 22 countries as of 2005. To this day, the International Eurasianist Movement
remains the largest and most influential organization promoting Eurasianist intellectual
endeavors
andpoliticalobjectivesthroughavarietyofmediums.
The only other significant Eurasianist organization, the Eurasian Movement of the
Russian Federation, which although considerably smaller has equally important political
connections, focuses on promoting the processes of Eurasian integration and opposes the
International Eurasian Movement on the grounds that Dugin is a fascist who has nothing to
69
dowithclassicalEurasianism.
The diversity of approaches and theses developed within the general framework of the
Eurasianist outlook, as well as the history of Eurasianism as a movement, demonstrate that
Eurasianism can by no means be considered to be a rigid political ideology or mere verbose form
of Russian nationalism. Rather, Eurasianism presents itself as a broad school of ideas offering
unique analytical perspectives grounded in a number of original as well as borrowed tenets
whose political reduction has historically led to the movements self-destruction. In the next
chapter, we will extract and discuss several of the most pertinent analytical propensities
developed by various Eurasianists in order to further highlight this intellectual nature of
Eurasianist thought and prepare this understanding for researching the Eurasianists analyses of
Polishstatehoodandidentity.
67
Dugin2014,opcit.,p.28.
68
Ibid,28-29.
69
Kofner,Jurij[26.08.2011],!,
""
" <
http://www.mesoeurasia.org/archives/4768
>
[13.06.2016].
31

CHAPTER2.THEEURASIANISTANALYTICALTOOLBOX
In considering both the divergent and unifying elements of Eurasianism as a school of

thought, the most pertinent features are those which lend the Eurasianist perspective towards
analytical employment. As we saw in the previous chapter, the history of Eurasianism is riddled
with the development of various concepts - some of which converged, others not - which the
Eurasianists utilized to decipher Russian-Eurasian civilization. Now in order is an outline of the
set of applicable categorizations which the Eurasianists have coined, borrowed, and developed
which distinguish Eurasianisms analytical propensities. Given that deconstructing each and
every formulation of the Eurasianists is far beyond the scope of the present work, we shall isolate
the most notable, pivotal, and relevant to our study and our subsequent application of the
Eurasianist framework to an analysis of Poland. These are none other than the constructs which
leading professors at Russias Altai State Technical University presented to the International
Journal of Environmental and Science Education as a systematic and holistic approach which
70
hasprovenitsheuristicandrelevantcharacter.
2.1Geography,space,andplace-development
Geographical analysis is so prevalent in and core to the Eurasianist framework that it has
led leading scholars on the topic, such as Marlene Laruelle, to approach Eurasianism as a
geographical ideology. Indeed, as Laruelle recalls, the Eurasianists were once criticized for
supposedly overemphasizing a material, geographical element that predestines the path of
71
Russia. The conceptualization of Eurasia as intrinsically linked to the territorial specificities
72
of Eurasia , the formulation of understandings of space (Russian: prostranstvo), and the unique
thesis of topogenesis (Russian: mestorazvitie) figure among the Eurasianists most important
postulations that defined not only their own subject, Russia-Eurasia, but can be and have been
appliedto
otherspaces.
70
Ivanov,A.,
Fotieva,I.Shishin,M.,Belokurova,S.,
[11.08.2016],
The
Ethno-Cultural
Concept
of
Classical
Eurasianism, <http://www.ijese.net/makale/694 >
[8.03.2017]
71
op
cit.,
p.
68.
72
Ibid.
32

In all of the Eurasianists discussions of the geography of Eurasia, geographical space is

explored as a factor which firstly sets the objective material boundaries of a civilization, people,
or culture. This factor is interpreted as simultaneously objective, undeniable, or even inescapably
impactful, as well as dialectically interactive with immaterial factors. Geography as a science,
however, is only half of the equation and cannot be closed; it must be interpreted as the
teleological counterpart to humanity and partially as that which exposes the hidden meaning of
73
events and destinies. By virtue of the interaction between nature and humanity, between the
physical soil and the metaphysical, arises geosophy, the affirmation and interpretation of distinct
historical destiny specific to a given geographical space. According to Marlene Laruelle, in line
74
with this, territory thus possesses an eschatological and philosophical value for the
Eurasianists. Arguably, this turns geography into a subject of the humanities or, conversely,
applies categories of the humanities such as history, and philosophy to identify the meaning and
influence of material factors. This dialectic, however, should not be mistaken for de-emphasizing
the importance of the geographical element itself. The seemingly chaotic or disarrayed nature of
a historical phenomenon, such as scattered migration, the expansion and retraction of territory, or
the restlessness of populations, can be attributed precisely to the patterned or rationalized
geographical ground. In this vein, the Eurasianists saw the great migrations of nomads across the
Eurasian space not as something sporadic, but as a phenomenon deeply tied to the patterns of the
Eurasian steppes. Similarly, the later expansion of Russia eastwards towards the Pacific was
conceived of not as arbitrary expansion, but as the logical horizontal development which, as
seen in the previous chapter, the Eurasianists contrasted to the vertical national experiences of
the Romano-Germanic West. To produce another example: the rise of Muscovite Rus to
encompass the Eurasian space following the reign of the Golden Horde was attributed not to
mere historical irredentism or a mythological Manifest Destiny, but was interpreted as an
expression of the continental logic of Eurasias soil itself. The sociohistorical milieu and its
territory, Trubetzkoy writes, must, for us, link into a united whole, a geographical individual,
75
oraLandschaft.
73
Laruelle,2008,op.cit.,p.33.
74
Ibid.
75
op
cit.,
p.
78.
33

This appeal to the geographic gives rise to the primacy of space as the matrix of the
geographical and the non-geographical which overall has its own logic, cycles, and internal
76
criteria. Through this lens, geography is the breeding ground, for every people, as long as it
develops within some geographical environment, elaborates its own national, ethical, juridical,
linguistic, ritual, economic, and political forms. The place where any people or state
development happens predetermines to a great extent the path and sense of this development -
77
up to the point when the two elements become one. Space can thus be seen as the qualitative
dimension of geography, its culmination in something which is to a great extent predetermined
by the geographical venue, but cannot remain independent of the logic of the processes that are
simultaneouslyunfoldinguponandbeinginfluencedbythisland.AlexanderDuginwrites:
It is impossible to separate history from spatial conditions, and the analysis of civilizations must proceed
not only along the temporal axis (before, after, developed or non-developed, and so on) but also
along the spatial axis (east, west, steppe, mountains, and so on)The climate of Europe and the
influence of its landscapes generated the particularity of European civilization, where the influences of the
woods in northern Europe and of the coast in the Mediterranean prevail. Different landscapes generated
different kinds of civilizations: the boundless steppes generated the nomad empires (from the Scythians to
the Turks), the lower lands the Chinese one, the mountainous islands the Japanese one, and the union of the
78
steppeandthewoodstheRussian-Eurasian
one.
The quality of space is manifested in the concept of spatial development or topogenesis,

mestorazvitie, coined by Savitsky, which aimed to prove scientifically the mystical link the
79
Eurasianists saw between territory and culture. Topogenesis deciphers the first part of the
reciprocal relation between the geographic and socio-historical through scientific demonstration.
Savitsky systematized the Eurasian territorys natural patterns in maps and tables which he used
to present the Eurasian continents law-like regularity in geographical patterns as well as this
unified continents inert tendency towards total occupation, manifested in different historical
periods by the Mongol Empire, the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, and the Eurasianists
vision of a future, consciously Eurasian state. For the Eurasianists, this soil quality of Eurasia
76
77
Ibid
78
Ibid,19.
79
34

was dominant over irrelevant or even fallacious blood or ethnic distinctions, hence the
80
EurasianistsrejectionofPan-Slavism.
Savitskys geographical diagram is defined by four botanical and pedological horizontal
ribbon-like strips, running from north to south on an east-west axis: the tundra (along the Arctic
Ocean shores), the taiga (a line Altai-Tyumen-Kazan-Kiev-Carpathians), the steppe (at the south
81
of the forest border), and the desert (Aralo-Altaic and Mongolian). These strips are intersected
by three plain zones: the one linking the White Sea to the Caucasus, the Siberian Plain, and the
Turkestan PlainFrom this meeting between strips and plains, between a latitudinal and
82
longitudinal principle, is born the Eurasian world. This general geographical outline
independent of legal borders offers the opportunity to define other and surrounding spaces in
relation to the proper Russian-Eurasian continent conversely to how it delineated the organic
bordersofEurasia.
Thus, the definitive impact of geography on the development of peoples, states, and
civilizations, the quality of space as something dialectically intertwining geography and
historical processes, and the primacy of soil form the elementary cornerstone of the
conceptualization of geography present throughout Eurasianist works. As logically follows, a
geographical categorization is the first step employed in a Eurasianist analysis. Indeed, this bears
direct relevance and prepares the ground for the second, arguably equally crucial category of
Eurasianistanalytics:geopolitics.
2.2Eurasiangeopolitics
The Eurasianists underlining of the importance of geographical territory directly

translates into their application and qualification of geopolitics. Indeed, the classical
Eurasianists view on the role of geography in forming civilizational and socio-political
tendencies was analogous to the founding fathers of geopolitics, Friedrich Ratzel (1844-1904)
and Rudolf Kjellens (1864-1922) notions of political geography and the state as a
80
Dugin,A.[12.10.2016],TheGreatWarof Continents,
<https://eurasianist-archive.com/2016/10/12/the-great-war-of-continents/>
[08.03.2017]
81
op
cit.,
p.70.
82
Ibid.
35

83
geographical organism embodied in space. Just as geopolitics translates the meaning of
geography into a political logic, so did the Eurasianists take up this thesis in translating Eurasias
geographical matrix into its own geopolitical perspective, or Eurasian geopolitics. Although the
classical Eurasianists did not explicitly employ the specific terminology of geopolitics, their
designations of Eurasias role in global processes and its contrast to other continents and
civilizations represented an analogue to the defining theses of geopolitics as a science. The most
concrete systematization of an explicitly Eurasian geopolitics came with the work of Alexander
Dugin, who in his Foundations of Geopolitics outlined the entire framework and history of
geopolitical sciences, earned himself the title of the founder of the Russian school of
geopolitics and thereby formulated a distinctly Eurasianist interpretation and application of
geopoliticalprecepts.
Geopolitics as a science is inherently interdisciplinary or syncretic. While it is first and
foremost predicated on the deciphering of the relationship between man and space, to this end it
draws on a vast range of fields such as geography, history, demography, political science,
sociology, religious studies, etc. Since the beginning of geopolitical studies attributed to the
German scholar Friedrich Ratzels concept of political geography to the contemporary worlds
geopolitical thinkers such as Zbigniew Brzezinski or Alexander Dugin, geopolitical analysis has
been marked by a diverse arsenal and even more varying range of application. The main law of
geopolitics is the affirmation of a fundamental dualism reflected in the geographical arrangement
of the planet and in historical typology of civilizations. This dualism is expressed in the
84
contradistinction between tellurocracy (land power) and thalassocracy (sea power). In this
dualist dissection of the world map, tellurocratic or land civilizations are those whose
geographical and historical situations display a propensity towards conservative, autarchic,
hierarchical, collective, and holistic qualities which situate tellurocracy in opposition to
thalassocratic or sea civilization, which embodies liberal, individualist, growth-oriented values
and progress. At the basic symbolic level, this is illustrated in the solidity, stability, and
connectedness of land contrasting to the fluidity and restlessness of sea. This fundamental
dualism is the foundational logic of geopolitics and is replicated in the examples of Sparta (land)
83
Dugin,A.,2000,:

,
Arktogeya,
Moscow,
p.
33,
39.
84
Ibid,15.
36

vs. Athens (sea), Rome (land) vs. Carthage (sea), the Russian Empire (land) vs. the British
Empire (sea), the socialist bloc (land) vs. the capitalist bloc (sea), and the Russian Federation
85
(land) vs. the Atlanticist project (sea) headed by the United States of America. On the
theoretical level, it distinguishes between the two archetypes of civilizational and geopolitical
propensities and identifies other strips of land on the planet as relative sub-categories in this
overall dialectic. The land geopolitical-civilizational type of Eurasia is sociologically
identified with the values of conservatism, holism, collective anthropology (the narod is more
important than the individual), sacrifice, an idealistic orientation, [and] the values of faithfulness,
86
asceticism,
honor,andloyalty.
By identifying Eurasia as a continent unto itself of strategic geopolitical importance and
endowed with its own geopolitical mission and civilizational features, the Eurasianists affirmed
the principle thesis of Sir Halford Mackinders geopolitical pivot of history in particular and
the Anglo-Saxon and German geopolitical schools view in general that Russia-Eurasia is the
constant embodiment of Heartland, i.e., the anchor of the land archetype. According to both
geopolitics and the Eurasianists, therefore, Eurasia, or Heartland as the archetype of tellurocratic
values, is a constant which has historically manifested itself in the forms of the Mongol project
87
which passed the tellurocratic baton on to the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, and the
contemporary Russian Federation. The geopolitical constants of the Eurasian space thus find
themselves reflected, albeit in different incarnations, in all of the historical experiences of the
Eurasian continent. This is exemplified in prototypic form in the classical Eurasianists
discussion of Eurasias continental opposition to maritime geopolitical projects. The pivotal
thesis of geopolitics found parallel in Savitskys affirmation that the future of Russia does not
reside in a simplistic copy of the oceanic politics of the others, which for many is inappropriate,
88
but in the full consciousness of its continentality and its predisposition to it. Further: By its
geographical situation, Russia is destined to call into new life the regions that, situated in the
89
centeroftheAsiancontinent,appear
tobedisinheritedinregardtotheoceaniceconomy.
85
Dugin,A.,2015,LastWaroftheWorld-Island:The Geopolitics
of
Contemporary
Russia
,
Arktos,
p.
10.
86
Ibid,8.
87
Ibid,4.
88
op
cit.,
p.
81.
89
Ibid.
37

The theses of classical and modern geopolitics are replicated by the Eurasianists to not
only understand the importance and predispositions of Eurasia itself, but also to understand this
continental subjects relation to other categorized geopolitical zones. As mentioned above, one of
Alexander Dugins landmark contributions to Eurasianism is his systematic exposition of
geopolitical theses and their application in the framework of the Eurasianist perspective on
Russia and its relation to the rest of the world. Dugin confirms that a geopolitical apperception
of Russia confirms not only the Eurasianists thesis, but elucidates the Eurasian mission with
the clarity of terms and analyses offered by geopolitics which the classical Eurasianists only
intuitively anticipated. His Last War of the World-Island: The Geopolitics of Contemporary
Russia in this regard is an instructive outline of Russian history from the standpoint of
Russian-Eurasian geopolitics. Dugins diagram is thus one of geopolitical Eurasianism or
continentalism vs. Atlanticism. This represents not only the culmination of a geopolitical
response to the Anglo-Saxon and Germanic models, but the initiative of a specifically Eurasianist
geopoliticalapperception.
Yet another unavoidable contribution of Dugin and neo-Eurasianism that is undeniably
irrelevant to our study is the extension of the Eurasianist analysis to a planetary scale. In this
scheme, the Eurasianist civilizational tendency is not restricted to Russia-Eurasia itself, but to
any civilizations and cultures that are opposed to Atlanticism by virtue of their preservation of
traditional values and land-based identity. This thesis has three enormous ramifications. First of
all, in contrast to the classical Eurasianists shunning of Europe as a Romano-Germanic
incarnation of Atlanticism in relation towards Russia, it allows for the possibility of a Eurasian
Europe, i.e., a Europe which rejects its modern heritage and returns to its pre-modern,
continental roots. The geopolitical thesis that Europe represents Rimland, or a space which
holds a rather dependent fate contingent on its attachment to either land or sea projects, is
thus to a certain extent revised to provide historical argumentation in favor of a tellurocratic
Europe that was lost with the advent of Modernity and Europes transformation into the West.
90
This is evident in Dugins borrowing from and promotion of the geopolitics of the European
90
Dugin,A.,[02.08.2016]Europevs.theWest,
<http://katehon.com/article/europe-vs-west>
[08.03.2017]
38

91
New Right and therein the Greater Europe from Lisbon to Vladivostok thesis. Secondly,
Dugins geopolitical mission for Eurasia transcends classical Eurasianisms ambiguity towards
Asia and other civilizations of the Euro-Asian supercontinent by laying the geopolitical
foundation for their unification into a common geopolitical great space, the initiating and
leading role of which belongs to Russia as by virtue of its unique Eurasian identity. This gives
rise to the notion of Eurasianism as the Old World or Eurasian super-continent dependent on
the integration of Russia-Eurasia itself and its alliance with other Eurasian powers. Thirdly,
this gives rise to the theory of multipolarity which is based on the plurality of civilizations,
among which Eurasian civilization is only one pole, but one which has the potential and
propensity towards opposing global Atlanticism and mutually guaranteeing the sovereignty of
other geopolitical poles. In the most ambitious revisions, this implies not only the global
geopolitical dualism between land and sea, but also the possibility of a
tellurocratic-thalassocratic dualism or choice latent in every subject. Individual countries,
civilizations, and spaces therefore have the choice of a Eurasian path, a thesis which shifts the
Eurasianist outlook from a two-dimensional to a kind of three-dimensional geopolitical
framework.92 These pivotal theses expand on and essentially confirm the classical Eurasianists
intuitions on a global role for Russia-Eurasia as echoed in Savitskys protoypical geo-economic
proposal, Continent-Ocean: Russia and the World Market that figured in the Eurasianists
originalExodustotheEast.
Geopolitics, thus, is an indispensable component which lends the Eurasian analysis not
only to discovering its own civilizational predisposition, but also to classifying other models,
blocs, and states from both a general geopolitical as well as Eurasianist-geopolitical standpoint.
It is no coincidence that geopolitics has been the trademark of Eurasianisms influence since
Dugins rigorous elaborations on the subject and has become the modus operandi of Eurasianist
thinktanks.
91
Dugin,A.,10.10.2016,TheGeopoliticsof
the
European
New
Right,
<
https://eurasianist-archive.com/2016/10/10/the-geopolitics-of-the-european-new-right/>
[08.03.2017]
92
Savin,L.,10.10.2016,opcit.
39

2.3Ethnosociologyandpeople
The quality of space and its (geo)political implications in the Eurasianist analysis is
paired with the ethnosociological analytical framework. If psychology deals with the individual,
sociology deals with society, and geopolitics deals with the factor of space, then
ethnosociologys concern is the ethnos defined as an organic association of people based on
common language, recognition of common origin, and characterized by a set of customs,
93
lifestyle, and traditions differing from those of other groups. The ethnos is seen as a primordial
human association, as one of the most fundamental and durable categories of human
94
organization that is an existential form of being which, according to Alexander Dugin, who
authored a textbook on the subject for Moscow State University, is sought by ethnosociology
even in those modern and post-modern societies in which the ethnos is no longer a visible or
95
recognized factor. According to ethnosociology, the ethnos as a subject precedes and outlives
allotherformsoforganizationsuchaspeople(laos),nation,orstate.
The Eurasianists, as has been established, viewed Eurasia as a unified, multi-ethnic
structure with the Great Russian ethnos as its central link. The distinct ethnosociological
formation of Russia-Eurasia is seen as a product of the spatial factor which contributed to the
horizontal unification of Eurasias numerous ethnoi into a super-ethnos or unification of multiple
super-ethnoi. This was specifically emphasized by Trubetzkoy in his attention to the relationship
and convergence between the various Eurasian ethnoi in language, one of the key elements of an
96
ethnos. In contrast to certain Western schools of ethnosociology and being opposed to Western
universalism from the beginning, the Eurasianists view recognizes an inherently multipolar field
97
ofethnoiinwhichallethnoiaredifferentorseparatebutequal.
93
Dugin,A.,2011,,Moscow, Akademicheskiy Proekt,
pp. 8.
5,
94
Bassin,M.,2016,TheGumilevMystique:Biopolitics,
Eurasianism,andthe
Construction of
Community
in
ModernRussia,NewYork,CornellUniversity Press,
p.
23.
95
EthnosociologyLectureseriesbyProf.AlexandreDugin.
MSU <
http://arctu7.wixsite.com/ethnosociology>
[08.03.2017]
96
SeeTrubetzkoy,N.S.,1921,TheUpperand
Lower Stories
of
RussianCulture in
The
Legacy
of
GenghisKhan
andOtherEssaysonRussiasIdentity(1991),AnnArbor,Michigan Slavic
Publications.
97
40

The greatest attention to developing a Eurasianist ethnosociological perspective was, as

described above, the life work of Lev Gumilev and formed the bedrock example of his own
theory of ethnogenesis. While Gumilevs attributing of the principle distinction of ethnoi to
98
behavior stereotypes is controversial among ethnosociological schools , his ethnosociological
investigations in the context of Russia-Eurasia and his proposal to consider the ethnos not so
much in social or biological categories but as a geographical phenomenon, always tied with its
99
surrounding landscape is crucial. The natural-geographical landscape is a sort of vital
platform for ethnic development, one that shelters and nourishes the ethnos and defines its most
important life parameters. Regardless of their size, the overwhelming majority of ethnoi live or
100
lived in particular territories. This geographical grounding of the ethnos is reminiscent of the
primacy of soil in the Eurasianists geographical schema and the geographical pivot of
geopolitics. For Gumilev, the ethnosociological landscape of Eurasia, with its unique
combination of ethnic diversity and ethnic unity, was precisely such: based on its landscape. This
isGumilevsethno-landscapetotality.
Crucial in the case of Eurasia in particular is Gumilevs hierarchical assembly of the
ethnos. An ethnos as a closed unit itself is composed of several layers which is comparable to the
101
proton-electron-neutron-atom-molecule hierarchy in physics. At the bottom level are two
elements: consortia, or paired entities of individuals not necessarily from the same
backgrounds brought together by common pursuits, such as religious sects, medieval artisan
artels, or colonizer communities, and convictions which are united by life conditions, family
ties, etc. The next level is the subethnos, or the larger formation of the above already bearing its
own stereotype as a self-conscious community and geographical location. These are the
subcomponents of an ethnos, akin to the Bretons, Burgundians, Gasconians, Basques, and
Alsatians within the French ethnos or the Pomory, Cossacks, Chaldony, Kriasheny, and other
102
groups within the Great Russian ethnos. In the most extreme cases and conditions, a social
98
99
Bassin,opcit.,p.35.
100
Ibid,37.
101
Ibid,62.
102
Ibid,63.
41

103
class or caste can become a subethnos. Beyond the level of ethnos, there is the superethnos,
which is roughly equivalent to a civilization. However, Gumilev qualifies Eurasia as a kind of
104
meta-ethnos encompassing seven superethnoi. This is a more nuanced shift of the classical
Eurasianists bipartite division of Eurasia into local ethnoi and the upper level of Eurasias
105
deephistorical,cultural,andcivilizationalaffinitiesbetweenitsethnoi.
Relations between ethnoi are distinguished in Gumilevs theories by specific patterns.
The first mode of ethnic interaction is assimilation, in which an ethnos with a high level of
energy, or passionarity in his theory of ethnogenesis, absorbs another ethnos whose
passionarity has been exhausted. The second interactive form is mixing, under the circumstances
of which two ethnoi of similar stamina engage with each other. The result is a composite group,
a sort of amalgamated ethnos in which each part finds a way to keep alive its own particular
106
ethnic memories and traditions. Fusion is the third form of engagement in which given ethnoi
merge to form an entirely new ethnic unitthat bears no resemblance to any of the multiple
107
ethnic substrata out of which it was created. Gumilevs fourth distinction is the case of
symbiosis which denotes a situation in which different ethnoi live in constant proximity and
interaction but do not necessarily coalesce based on the principles of mutual respect and
108
noninterference, which enable all ethnies involved to retain their original ethnic individuality.
The degree or form of symbiosis is determined by the nature of the complementarity between
ethnoi. Eurasian civilization, in Gumilevs analysis, is thus a symbiosis of superethnoi based on a
high degree of positive complementarity, or synergy. It is with this mapping of the structure of
the ethnos and ethnic interactions that Gumilev traced the history of Eurasian civilization,
studied primarily the steppe peoples that formed what was in his view the second major
superethnoi in relation to the central Russian ethnos, and became known as an influential, albeit
controversialethnosociologist.
103
Bassin,opcit.,p.35.
104
Laruelle2008,opcit.,p.71.
105
Bassin,opcit.,p.107.
106
Ibid,60.
107
Ibid.
108
Ibid.
42

The theory of ethnogenesis is Gumilevs interpretation of the historical cycles of ethnoi.

Gumilev presupposes an ambitiously specific life-span for ethnoi divided into rigid stages and
asserts that their driving force is biochemical energy latent in the ethnos environment of which
the ethnos itself is an element. Gumilev distinguishes the following phases of ethnogenesis:
homeostasis - thrust - rise - overheating or acmatic phase - fracturing or inertia phase -
109
obscuration - memorial stage. The average lifespan of an ethnos is considered by Gumilev to
be approximately 1,200 years, while exceptions are made for the numerous historical ethnoi that
have perished earlier under varying circumstances. Despite this controversial theory of
ethnogenesis which mainly attributed ethnic development and cycles to biospherical chemicals
and energies and which scholars have criticized as Gumilevs weakest point, his theories of
ethnic interactions offer a systematic approach elucidating the Eurasianist conceptualization of
Eurasian civilization and applicable to other cases as an analytical framework, as Gumilev
himself demonstrated in his passing analyses of the French, Italian, and other ethnic experiences.
110
The next phase in the development of a Eurasianist ethnosociological perspective is the

credit of Alexander Dugin, who in his capacity as the head of the sociological department at
Moscow State University presented summative monographs of sociology and sought to elucidate
a Russian or Eurasian ethnosociological school based on the Eurasianists precepts. While
Dugin praises Gumilevs historical investigations of the ethnic structure of Eurasia, he takes
issue with Gumilevs precise ethnosociological categorizations. Dugin addresses two main
points: firstly, rather than being built out of consortia or convictions, neither the subethnos, nor
the ethnos are composed of groupsany group of the level of a consortium or conviction already
111
has a conscious ethnic nature. The ethnos precedes such, and is not built out of it. Secondly,
Dugin extrapolates, what ethnosociology understands as the ethnos, i.e., the simplest form of
society, is in Gumilevs theory present only at his phase of homeostasis. Otherwise, Gumilev
purportedly inflates the ethnos and the people in his process of ethnogenesis instead of making
the ethnosociological distinction of the potential, but not necessity, of an ethnos transforming
109
110
Bassin,M.,opcit.,p.41.
111
43

into a people. Thus, in Dugins words, Gumilevs models in ethnosociology are to be used only
112
with great caution. In addition, the criticism is leveled that Gumilev was extremely
materialistic in his worldview, and therefore overlooked or rejected the importance of religion or
spiritual values in the life of the ethnos, whereas Eurasianism boasts a hefty arsenal of religious
motives and comparative religious methodology. While Gumilev could appreciate the role of
religious themes in the continuity of the Russian ethnos between the periods of Kievan Rus and
the rise of Muscovy, he remained fundamentally disinclined towards immaterial or non-natural
dimensions of the Eurasian ethnosphere. For Dugin, however, the religiosity of an ethnos is
immanent, the transcendental religion of this or that ethnos is an indispensable referential point
for the ethnos in space and time, and even eschatology is a distinctive feature of time in
societyin it is manifested the characteristic property of a people - project, will, plunging into
113
the future, and dialogue with the forces of fate. This opens the door for an examination of the
Eurasianistsviewsontheroleandplaceofreligion.
2.4ThereligiousmatrixandTraditionalism
Gumilevs coarse bio-materialism in his ethnosociological analysis is counterposed by

the classical Eurasianists noticeably religious interpretations of the Russian Revolution,
Eurasias totality, and their assigning of particular values to each of Eurasias component
religions while assuming a common bond between them. This stands out even more so in
contrast to Alexander Dugins rigorously anti-profane Traditionalism which seeks metaphysical
and sacred motives behind otherwise modern or material categories. Indeed, the Eurasianist
school is saturated with a kind of religionism which proves indispensable in its examination of
Eurasiaitselfandothercivilizationalexperiences.
For the classical Eurasianists, religion was one of the single most important aspects of
Eurasian civilization. After all, the Russian Revolution itself was attributed to the religiosity of
the Russian masses and the eschatological messianism of Eurasias historical crossroads, and
Eurasias Byzantine heritage was precisely the fruit of the transfer of the Orthodox Christian
112
113
Ibid,276,278.
44

identity. At the same time, for Trubetzkoy, for example, one of the main defects of the Soviet
project was precisely its atheism, its alien attitude towards Eurasias faithful, whereas We
profess Eastern Orthodoxy, and this faith, while conforming to the traits of our national
psychology, should be at the very center of our culture, from there influencing many aspects of
114
Russian life. The notion that any Eurasian project could be built without God or even against
115
God proved critical in his critique of the Soviet Union. Moreover, the Eurasianists allowance
for an enormous role for Orthodoxy in the identity of Russia-Eurasia was complemented by a
reverence for the other spiritual confessions of Eurasia, such as Islam, Buddhism, and indigenous
traditions. But how did the Eurasianists assign a value to religion in their analytical
distinguishing of Eurasia? How did they juxtapose different religions within Eurasia and
distinguish them in reference to the religious traits of other, non-Eurasian civilizations? The
answer to this question, and by extension the key to the Eurasianist religious analysis, is to be
sought once again in the early Eurasianists intuitions and the neo-Eurasianists systematizations
onthebasisofexistingframeworks.
The religious matrix which the Eurasianists identified as complementarily linking the
different confessions and peoples of Eurasia and their relation to the religions of West and East is
explainable through the philosophical school of Traditionalism. The philosophy of
Traditionalism was not coincidentally born in the same post-WWI world of the Eurasianists
time in which faith in the progressive European order was shaken by war, revolution, and
impending socio-economic crisis which fostered radical reconsiderations of history across the
continent. But Traditionalisms home soil was not the East, as Eurasia, looking to reject its
multi-faceted subjugation to the paradigm of the West, but the West itself, where religious,
esoteric, and artistic intellectuals sought to rescue the West from spiritual decline and the perils
of Modernity. The leading roles of this movement are often assigned to the Frenchman Rene
Guenon (1886-1951) and the Italian Julius Evola (1898-1974). These two thinkers identified the
crisis of the modern world (the title of Guenons pivotal, programmatic work) to be the loss of
114
Trubetzkoy,N.S.,1991,TheLegacyofGenghis
Khan
and
Other
Essayson
Russias
Identity,Ann
Arbor,
MichiganSlavicPublications,p.98.
115
Dugin,A.,06.12.2016,PrinceNikolayTrubetzkoy
and
his
Theory
of
Eurasianism,
<https://eurasianist-archive.com/2016/12/06/prince-nikolai-trubetzkoy-and-his-theory-of-eurasianism/>,
[09.03.2017]
45

Tradition, or the transcendental motive inherent to all of the worlds initiatic spiritual
traditions. Guenon and Evola pointed to the common primordial roots of all religions and the
cyclical degradation of humanity corresponding to the obscuring or loss of the referential point
of Tradition. For Guenon, rescuing the West from the depravity and abyss of Modernity meant
turning to the still alive and vibrant traditions of the East, while for Evola the solution was to be
found in a regeneration of Europes pre-Christian traditional archetypes or individual endeavors
to embrace Tradition as a whole. While it has since been revealed that the Eurasianist Nikolay
116
Alexeyev was the first Russian thinker to cite Rene Guenon, a direct link between the
Eurasianists and Traditionalists can only be speculated upon. However, the Eurasianists
produced religious theses that have proven to be analogous to those of Traditionalism, and
Alexander Dugin himself as a Traditionalist has asserted: The intuitions of the Russian
conservatives, from the Slavophiles to the classical Eurasianists, are thereby completed by being
provided with a fundamental theoretical base with the philosophy of Traditionalismas well
117
as the profound teachings of the Tradition. In this regard, James Heiser equates Eurasianism
118
toanarmeddoctrineofTraditionalism.
Traditionalism, which posited an essential, planetary dualism between profane and
traditional civilizations, is reflected in the Eurasianists appreciation of Eurasia as a kind of
fortress of Tradition with a diverse range of confessions, their purporting of a common axis
between them, and their designation of certain tendencies to be found in the matrix of a given
traditions molding of its corresponding civilization. While the classical Eurasianists were
critical of Islam and Buddhism on the level of spiritual dogma in relation to Orthodox
119
Christianity, they nevertheless appreciated indigenous shamanism, Nestorian Christianity, and
Tatar Islam [is] deemed to be the main component in the religious fusion between Russia and
120
the steppes. The common ground between the religions of Russia-Eurasia is manifested in
their paradoxically complementary degrees of exotericism and esotericism (the two key
116
117
Ibid,33.
118
SeeHeiser,J.,2014,TheAmericanEmpire
Should
be
Destroyed:
Aleksandr
Dugin
and
the
Perils
of
ImmanentizedEschatology,Texas,Repristination Press.
119
Laruelle,2008,opcit.,pp.44,45.
120
Ibid.
46

categories of Traditionalism) and, in the case of Orthodoxy and Islam, their collectivism or, in
the case of local shamanisms and Buddhism, their relative neutrality and introversion. Here the
Mongol experience is stressed in the works of Trubetzkoy as a precedent for the coexistence of
different faiths in the framework of common ways of life, faith, culture, and state ethics [which]
make up but one whole, one ideology, preserving the indelible originality and the messianism.
121
Indeed, the Eurasianists position Russia as a bastion of living Tradition against

Modernity: Life in Russia was an everyday confession of ones faith; everyday life was the
form of Russian religiousness, the true contemplation of God, and this is what the church
leaned on, in which the organic Eurasian lifestyle imbued with Orthodoxy is the natural
122
sacralizing [of] everyday life. Yet Eurasias religious matrix is opposed not only to profanity
and Modernity, but is antagonistic to Western Christianity in general, in particular Catholicism
and Protestantism, which are seen as not only carrying values that are opposed to those of
Eurasias religions and statehood inherited from both the Mongol and Byzantine models and
fostered by such religions as Orthodoxy and Islam, but as the dangerous precedents of the secular
123
forms of Western universalism which the Eurasianists existentially reject. This is the
metaphysicaldimensionofEurasiasantagonismtotheRomano-GermanicWest.
The most direct application of Traditionalism, of course, is the work of Alexander Dugin.
While some scholars suggest that Traditionalism is the elementary foundation of Dugins
thought, the argument can be made that Dugin is a Eurasianist because of his Traditionalist
theses concerning Russia-Eurasia or, conversely, that he is a Traditionalist because of his view of
Eurasias fundamental propensities and mission. At any rate, Dugins Traditionalist
Eurasianism manifests itself in two main instances: (1) the reconsideration of Russian
Orthodoxy explicitly through the lens of Traditionalist terminology and concepts, and (2) the
elucidation of Russia-Eurasias history and religious mission in the framework of
Traditionalisms notion of sacred geography. The first point pertains to Dugins investigation
of Russian Orthodoxy as a bastion of Tradition that has not degraded to the extent of the rest of
121
Laruelle,2008,opcit,ibid.
122
Ibid.
123
47

Christianity and other traditions, which logically leads him to conclude that it is precisely by
virtue of Orthodoxy that Russia is destined to oppose the West and Modernity. [D]oes initiatic
124
Orthodox Russia not remain the best place for ascension?, he rhetorically asks. His analysis
of Russian Orthodox iconography, moreover, leads him to suggest that Russia is endowed with a
125
sacred eschatological mission. Yet even before the emergence of Orthodoxy proper, Dugin
suggests on the basis of an analysis of the sacred geography relying on the Traditionalists own
remarks on Russia, a vast variety of myths, symbols, astrology, and esoteric revelations, that
Russia-Eurasia is the heir of the primordial sacred center of Hyperborea. In this vein, he
hyperbolicallyconcludesinhisMysteriesofEurasia:
The self-consciousness of peoples and nations traditionally inhabiting the territory of Russia is
fundamentally connected with the specific, sacred geography of this territory. In the complex of sacred
geography, the lands of Russia occupy a central place in accordance with the ancient logic of astronomical
and astrological correlations. The consciousness of the uniqueness of Russia from the perspective of sacred
geography largely determines the mystery of Russian patriotism. Russian patriotism is imbued with a
cosmic fate and is not only a fact of history. He who lives and learns Russia lives and learns the secret
bequeathed to distant generations of ancestors who fought under the banner of Alexander the Great,
galloped across the steppe among Tatar cavalry, worshipped the the Son of God in Byzantium, lit the
sacred fires on the altars of Ahura-Mazda, listened to the teachings of the druids under the oaks of Europe,
beheld in spiritual ecstasy the eternal dance of Shiva-Nataraja, built the ziggurats of Assyria, destroyed
Carthage, and sailed the seas in boats with the curved neck of the Hyperborean Swan at the nose, always
remembering the Heart of the World, the golden heart of Russia (Nikolai Gumilev) and Mystical
126
Russia.
Dugin translates his sacred geographical analysis into a direct confirmation of the Eurasianist
geopolitical mission, asserting that it is Russia-Eurasias predisposed sacred mission to unify the
civilizations of land and Tradition. This sacred geographical analysis is an intriguing
reflection of Eurasianisms constant geographical foundation, positing that religion itself is a
space with its own logic. The logic of Eurasias mission to restore Tradition and combat
Atlanticism a la Dugin by virtue of its Hyperborean origin is echoed in Guenons call to turn to
the East for the salvation of the West and represents what Ronald Lasecki calls a kind of
124
Dugin,A.,[16.10.2016],RussianOrthodoxyandInitiation,
<https://eurasianist-archive.com/2016/10/16/russian-orthodoxy-and-initiation/> [09.03.2017]
125
Dugin,A.,[20.11.2016]TheDormitionof
the
Mother of
God,
<
https://eurasianist-archive.com/2016/11/20/the-dormition-of-the-mother-of-god/> [09.03.2017]
126
Dugin,A.,[16.10.2016],ContinentRussia,
<https://eurasianist-archive.com/2016/10/16/continent-russia/>
[09.03.2017]
48

127
Russo-centric traditionalism. In an alternative historical view, this represents an inversion of
the revolutionary, messianic mission for Russia found in the 19th century writings of Alexander
128
Herzens discourse on Asia. From the perspective of Eurasianism, this is the transmutation of
space into a religious dimension in which religious and mythological archetypes influence the
tendencies of Eurasia in a distinctly metaphysical way. The mythological and Orthodox Christian
prophecy of the Third Rome is thus not only a national myth - it is a sanctification of Eurasias
primordial fate as Katehon, and one which has reproduced itself throughout Eurasian history
from Genghis Khans Empire of Mankind to the Third Rome to the Third International to the
Eurasianists envisioned ideocracy. Trubetzkoy tellingly likens Eurasias religiosity to that of
India, emphasizing: for great cultures are always religious, while irreligious cultures fall into
129
decay. Moreover, Savitskys extensive proposals for a metaphysical economy for Eurasia
to preserve a symphony of socio-economic justice and spirituality while escaping economism
130
are congruent to Julius Evolas Traditionalist critique of the profane, demonic economy as
131
ModernitysantithesistoTraditionalcivilizationsviewsofworkandsustenance.
Thus, the Eurasianists remarks on religion, in many ways analogous to Traditionalism,
are a crucial, meta-historical and openly metaphysical foundation of their analysis and
worldview. It is a revelation of Eurasian civilization itself with its own peculiarities as well as
a prophecy of the role and relation of Eurasia to the outside world, this time on a religious
level. As such, their interpretations of various religious traditions as well as the role of religion as
addacrucialdimensiontotheirunderstandingsofgivenspacesandcivilizations.
127
Lasecki,R.,[09.05.2016],Paradygmatgeopolityczny wobec paradygmatu etnopolitycznego: Aleksandr Dugin
i
ruchidentytarystyczny"<
http://konserwatyzm.pl/artykul/13685/paradygmat-geopolityczny-wobec-paradygmatu-etnopolitycznego-aleksandr-
dugin-i-ruch-identytarystyczny/>[09.03.2017]
128
SeeMaiorova,O.,ARevolutionaryandthe Empire:Alexander HerzenandRussian
Discourse onAsia
za:
Bassin,M.,Glebov,S.,Laruelle,M.,2015,Between Europeand Asia:
TheOrigins,
Theories, and
Legaciesof
RussianEurasianism,UniversityofPittsburgh Press.
129
Trubetzkoy,N.S.,1991,opcit.,p.135.
130
SeeBeisswenger,M.,MetaphysicsoftheEconomy: TheReligiousandEconomic Foundations of
P.N.
SavitskiisEurasianism,za:Bassin,M.,Glebov, S.,
Laruelle,
M.,2015,BetweenEuropeand Asia:
The
Origins,
Theories,andLegaciesofRussianEurasianism ,
University
ofPittsburghPress.
131
Evola,J.,2002,MenAmongtheRuins:Post-War Reflectionsof
a
RadicalTraditionalist,
Vermont,Inner
Traditions,pp.165-177.
49

2.5Civilizationasaconcept
The ultimate product of these analytical categories of Eurasianism is therefore clear: the
fundamental subject of the Eurasianist analysis is the question of civilization, i.e., one of the
largest concepts that the historical consciousness of mankind is capable of generatingwhich
132
possesses extensive spatial, temporal, and cultural boundaries. In deciphering Russia-Eurasia
as its own civilization, the Eurasianists applied and developed analytical frameworks which are
applicabletodistinguishingothercivilizationsfromanindependentorreferentialstandpoint.
Based on these analytical categories which the Eurasianists have utilized and metabolized
within their own perspective, we shall now turn to apply this conglomerate lens to Poland, a
country which shares a dialectical and turbulent history with Russia-Eurasia. In so doing, we
seek to unveil what the Eurasianists thought about the civilizational identity and main historical
processes of Polish statehood on the geographical, geopolitical, ethnosociological, and religious
terms by which the third continent of Eurasia itself was discovered and its inclinations were
elaborated.
132
50

CHAPTER3.POLANDFROMAEURASIANISTPERSPECTIVE
Eurasianist deliberations on Poland represent a unique case study in the application of

Eurasianist thought. The classical Eurasianists tended to mention Poland and its relationship
vis-a-vis Russia-Eurasia only in passing; Poland appears to generally fall out of the scope of Lev
Gumilevs scholarship, and as recent as 1998 Alexander Dugin openly stated that he had never
concretely dealt with the case of Poland.133 Only in the last two decades have Eurasianist
thinkers devoted exclusive analyses to the Polish question, primarily of a geopolitical nature.
Moreover, only a handful of Polish scholars have directly dealt with Eurasianism, and more often
than not through the lens of those ideological categorizations which we have suggested are
inadequate for understanding the history and nature of Eurasianism as a school of thought.
Nevertheless, an extensive reading of historical and contemporary Eurasianist works reveals that
the Eurasianists have offered both their own emblematic characterizations of Poland and
framework for analysis which, in the very least, allow for deductive and inductive examination
of the identity of the country which has so historically often been in conflict with Russia-Eurasia
that significant representatives of its national intelligentsia have proclaimed an existential,
meta-historical antagonism between the two, a fact which the Eurasianists have commented on.
In this final chapter, we shall present the main observations on Poland found in Eurasianist
works in order to identify the crux of the Eurasianists Polish question and thereby lay the
groundworkforfutureresearch.
3.1Polandsgeographicalfate
In the words of Lev Gumilev initiating his study of the civilizations of the Eurasian
steppes, let us deal with geography.134 Any study of Eurasianist thought on Poland requires an
establishment of the geographical characteristics of the space we are dealing with, a precedent
133
AleksandrDuginoPolsce,25.02.2012,Wierni
Polsce,
<https://wiernipolsce.wordpress.com/2012/02/25/aleksander-dugin-o-polsce/> [21.05.2017]
134
Gumilow,
Lew,2004,ladamicywilizacjiwielkiegostepu
,
Warszawa,
Polski
Instytut
Wydawniczy,
p.
27.
51

set by the Eurasianists in their presentations of Russia-Eurasia. Interestingly enough, the

Eurasianists never explicitly discussed the geography of Poland, but their subsequent theses on
Polish identity do offer the opportunity to infer or deduce how they would characterize Polands
geographical peculiarities, its place-development. Moreover, Polish scholars, including those
dealing with Eurasianism, have discussed the question of borders between the Eurasianists
Russia-EurasiaandPoland.
Just as geography is an anchor of the Eurasianists analyses, so is it central to the matrix
out of which would eventually emerge and contest Poland. Indeed, as the British-Polish historian
Norman Davies has pointed out, the geographical situation of Polish lands is not only widely
prevalent as a focus in Polish historiography, but is in fact a kind of paradox. On the one hand,
Polands geographical position is often asserted to be fatalistically determinant to the point that it
has been deemed unfortunate, the villain of her history which has trapped or condemned
Poland to its historical experiences of partition, whereas, on the other hand, the same can be
equally applied to Polands neighbors during different historical periods, and geography is a
universal material factor.135 Intimately connected with the supposedly dramatic consequences of
Polands geographical predicament is the very questionability of the notion of a geography of
Poland or Polish lands without the assumption of a fourth dimension, namely, the
metaphysical assertion of a Polish motherland, since, Davis writes, it is impossible to identify
any fixed territorial base which has been permanently, exclusively, and inalienably, Polish.136
Yet where Davies posits that such claims are ultimately normatively irrelevant and proceeds to
outline a heartland Poland and outlying elastic provinces, we have at our disposal the
Eurasianists geographical and geosophical outline of their continent Eurasia whose
hermeneutical whole and qualitative western boundaries allow a referential distinguishing of
Polish lands to be attempted without falling into the trap of territorial irredentism or circular
post-modern deconstructions of borders and frontiers. Thus, we shall proceed to investigate
Polands place and space by virtue of both reference and inference, whose details will
become clearer and more concrete over the course of our application of subsequent layers of
135
Davies,Norman,2005,GodsPlayground:
A
History
of
Poland
Volume
I:
The
Origins
to
1795
,
Oxford,
Oxford
UniversityPress,pp.23-24.
136
Ibid,24.
52

Eurasianist analysis. It is worth noting in passing that the designations of Central and/or
Eastern Europe to which Poland is often assigned in geographic discourse will be left for
discussion to our geopolitical diagnosis where, as the Eurasianist school believes, they in fact
belong.
A reading of Eurasianist references to Poland indicates that the Russia-Eurasia of the
classical Eurasianists western border ends where Poland begins. Savitsky unambiguously states
that Eurasia is a particular historical and geographical world extending from the borders of
Poland,137 and his geographical diagram of Eurasia with its ribbon-like strips and temporal
zones stop more or less at modern Polands borders, as is the case with the East European or
Russian Plain. In another place, he explicitly states that Poland does not belong to the
Eurasian world.138 Trubetzkoy emphasizes in addition to historical and state traditions that
Poland has no natural connection to Russia owing to geographic considerations as Europes
outpost in the East, a phrase with, among other things, clear geographic connotations.139
Gumilev, for whom geography and climate were crucial to the formation of ethnoi, pointed to the
isothermic air-boundary of Europe and Eurasia between Poland and the Baltic states, Belarus,
and Ukraine.140 It is also known that the Eurasianists considered the regions of Galicia and
Volynia to be legitimate parts of Eurasia,141 which is confirmed by the Russian Eurasianist
living in interwar Poland, S.L. Wojciechowski, who wrote in 1928 that the border between
Poland and Russia is at once a line of division between two cultures - the Eurasian and
Romano-German, and should therefore not be violated in either direction.142 In the same year,
the Polish diplomat Marian Uzdowski treated Eurasianism with hostility on the same grounds for
claiming the Eastern Polish borderland and Eastern Galicia.143 Trubetzkoy also asserts that
137
Savitsky,P.N., .
<http://gumilevica.kulichki.net/SPN/spn11.htm>
[21.05.2017]
138
Savitsky,P.N.,1928, .
<http://gumilevica.kulichki.net/SPN/spn04.htm#spn04note10 >>[21.05.2017]
139
Trubetzkoy,1991,opcit.,pp.163,198.
140
Gumilow, 2004,opcit.,p.19.
141
op
cit.,
p.
73.
142
Backer,Roman, in
Lipanov,A.V.,
2007,

,Moscow,InstituteofSlavic Studiesof
the
RussianAcademy of
Sciences,
pp.315-316.
143
Bcker,Roman,FromRejectiontoAttempts at
Reconciliation:Poles
and
theInterwar
EurasianMovement,
in
Shlapentokh, Dmitry,2007,RussiabetweenEast and West:ScholarlyDebates
onEurasianism,
Ledien/Boston,
Brill,p.113.
53

Galicia is a natural geographic extension of Eurasian territory.144 In another place, he claims

that the eastern borderlands of Poland, in fact belonging to Russia-Eurasia, had been torn
away, but that such was a temporary phenomenon; sooner or later nature will have its way.145
As the Polish scholar of Eurasianism, Roman Backer, has discussed, the question of
Russia-Eurasias borders was central to interwar Polish intellectuals assessments of
Eurasianism, the most coherent among whom all took note that Eurasianism laid no geographical
or cultural claims to Poland beyond Ukraine and Belarus, although even there compromises in
terms of territorial and national autonomy were up for discussion alongside Eurasianists
purported respect for the 1921 Treaty of Riga.146 Overall, it is clear that Poland is not included in
the geographical frame of Russia-Eurasia, but is the latters neighbor, a thesis which both the
classicalEurasianistsandtheircontemporaryPolishcriticsapparentlyacknowledged.
Where does this leave Polish lands? Norman Davies writes that the heartland
provinces of predominantly Polish settlement are situated between the Odra and Vistula Rivers.
It was here that one branch of the Western Slavs first established itself in the seventh and eighth
centuries, and as Polanie, or people of the open fields, engendered the forebears of the nation
who are now known as Poles.147 These relatively historically stable Polish heartlands consist of:
Wielkopolska, an open country, with broad expanses of meadowland in the valleys separated by
rolling tracts of forest; Maopolska backed up against the subalpine ridge of the Carpathians and
long stretches of lowland valleys between hills; Mazowsze with its expanses of heath and
scrubland and partial forest coverage; and Kujawy which connects Mazowsze and
Wielkopolska, a flat terrain cluttered with glacial remains and spidery lakes.148 Davies
assigns lsk, Pomorze, Prusy and Mazury, Podlasie, Polesie, Woy, Podole, Ru Czerwona,
Ukraina, mud and Aukstota, Biaoru, and Czarnoru to the elastic outerlands that have
drifted in and out of the orbit of the Polish heartlands, the latter six of which (minus mud and
Aukstota) the Eurasianists considered the western extremities of Eurasia historically (and
144
Trubetzkoy,1991,opcit.,p.206.
145
146
Bcker,Roman,2007,opcit.,pp.114-115.
147
Davies,opcit.,p.26.
148
Ibid,26-27.
54

unsuccessfully) contested by Poland-Lithuania.149 Eurasianist references to Poland seem to

suggest the same identification of this core Polish center based on the original distribution of
the Polanie before later territorial expansion which in the East culminated in the
Polish-Lithuanian project counterposed to the medieval Russian-Eurasian project. The
ethnosociological, historical, and other dimensions of this place-development will be discussed
below.
Having defined Polands core contours, the geographical tendencies of these lands in
themselves and their relation to the Eurasianists geographical survey of Eurasia is in order.
While the Polish lands have distinguished natural boundaries in the North (the Baltic coast)
and the South (the Carpathian and Sudety mountains), Poland is characterized by a lack of
natural borders in its West and East. The rolling fields of the Polish Plains on which the country
rests and derives its ethnonym name are part of the narrowing of the continent into a wedge-like
shape that inevitably funnels movement on to the east-west axis along the European Plain and
the Grodno-Warsaw-Berlin Depression and the Toru-Eberswalde Depression provide natural
passageways parallel to the mountain and coastal barriers.150 This longitudinal precept of
Polands geography is also reflected in its lakelands, i.e., the Pomeranian and Mazurian. The run
of Polands main rivers latitudinally from the Baltic match this east-west movement funnel
with a north-south one. The resultant structure of Poland is one ofa lop-sided frame in which
the dominant horizontal warp, is offset by the vertical weave of the rivers offering every
facility for movement and transit151 and is open to the wind, from certain perspectives referred
toastheindefensiblenorthernEuropeanplain.
The picture thus arises that Polands geographical situation is notably open,
transitory, or fluid in terms of geographical patterns and movement across its terrain. As has
been established, the Eurasianists attachment of immense importance to geography as a factor
and value in itself anchored their thesis that Russia-Eurasias geography conditions a world
unto itself. If Eurasia was marked by a north-south and center-periphery pattern with internal
geographical expanses running east-west152 which ultimately form a hermeneutical whole, then in
149
Savitsky,1928,opcit.
150
Davies,opcit.,p.31
151
Ibid,32-33.
152
op
cit.,
p.
71.
55

the case of Poland we are confronted with a place on the geographic map that is open to East and
West, lacking insulation from either trajectory, and whose climactic and geographical resources
condition it mid-way between that of Western Europe and that of Russia.153 If Russia-Eurasias
fauna, climate, soil, and flora were categorized as complementary and forming a regular,
harmonious whole bearing near perfect regularity, then Polands natural features are not closed
unto themselves in a system, but extensions of Western Europe and the outer reaches of Eurasia,
and moreover are irregular in their correlation. In the realm of vegetation, Poland is is still
within the normal range of the European mainland, meaning that its trees and bush flow from
or to West or East.154 These considerations even give rise to the impression that Polands
geographical position is precarious or dependent, which would in a purely determinist
geographical perspective account for Polish territorys rapid historical contractions, expansions,
subjugation, and partition by forces descending down its plains from West and East or the routes
that have run down it in ancient and early medieval times from North to South. In addition, the
geographical-historical relations between Polands core and its outlying regions are tenuous, as
Davies encapsulates in the term elastic, which contradicts Eurasias alleged center-periphery
magnetism. These factors are extremely important indicators which will feature prominently in
theEurasianistgeopoliticalevaluationofPoland.
The Eurasianists conviction that Russia-Eurasias geographical features formed a unified
third continent are thus starkly contrasted by Polands geographic and natural attributes which
render it middled between East and West. This predicament of place translates into the
qualitative predicament of space, in which Poland is fully absorbed neither by East nor West
but spatially torn or, in the very least, vulnerable between the two. As we will see later on, this
manifests itself in Poland being uneasily straddled between the two worlds of the Eurasianists,
the European and the Eurasian, in more than a few senses. Thus, through the Eurasianist
lens, it can be inferred that Polands spatial logic would be in limbo between that of the Eurasian
and European spaces, i.e., its place-development (mestorazvitie) is not qualitatively independent
in its own right, but open to synthesis or clash in the matrix of the Eurasian-European border.
Polands geography is thus slated to be represent a bridge, a wedge, or a pivot, an
153
Davies,opcit.,33
154
Davies,opcit.,ibid.
56

objective platform open to subjective use in relation to West or East. Here it bears remembrance
that the Eurasianists did not confine their geographical observations to materialist determinism,
but saw geographical impulses manifesting themselves in and dialectically conditioning further
meta-historical dimensions. Having determined the soil which exposes the hidden meaning of
events and destinies...that is intrinsically linked to history and its philosophical interpretation, as
well as national identity,155 the latter qualities can now be given content. Polands very
specific yet tragic geographical situation on the border between two worlds (Dugin156),
becomes especially obvious and imbued with glaring relevance in the Eurasianist analysis of
Polandsgeopoliticalpropensitieswhichnowbegsourattentionandwillservefurtherinquiry.
3.2ThegeopoliticsofPoland
Polands geopolitical propensities are perhaps the single most easily gleaned theme from
Eurasianist references to Poland and arguably the most critical. Whereas Russia-Eurasia is
postulated to represent the geopolitical tendency of Land, in its purest form as the geopolitical
axiom of Heartland, Poland is seen as intrinsically geopolitically dependent, a product which
Dugin classifies as an effect of geopolitical duality or borderness which bodes that forever
in history will arise the problem of Polands partition between East and West.157 In the classical
Eurasianists works, as we have seen, Poland is not identified as part of Eurasia. Rather, we will
see that Poland or a Polish project is perceived in the Eurasianists analyses as unstable and
inherently susceptible to representing a geopolitical opponent of Russia-Eurasia as, in
Trubetzkoys words, the spearhead of an invasive movement by European civilization and
Catholicism.158 At first glance, this clearly situates Polands geopolitical identity in the
Romano-German geopolitical camp of the classical Eurasianists and in the Atlanticist
category of geopolitics introduced into Eurasianism by Alexander Dugin. However, a closer
analysis of the relatively few direct geopolitical approaches to Poland in Eurasianist works
reveals a more nuanced picture. While lending itself towards manifestation in anti-Eurasian
155
Laruelle,
2008,opcit.,p.33
156
AleksandrDuginoPolsce,opcit.
157
Ibid.
158
Trubetzkoy,1991,opcit.,p.206
57

geopolitical experiences, Polands borderness and geopolitical duality does not necessarily
denote Romano-Germanism or Atlanticism, but is interpreted as nominally neutral and only
conditionally inclined towards such as one of various scenarios geopolitically imposed upon this
bridge, wedge, or pivot that is Poland. This is the geopolitical quality of Polands basic
geographicalsituation.
An interesting prelude to this thesis is evident in Eurasianist evaluations of the
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth which once occupied significant parts of Russia-Eurasia and
posed the greatest competitive threat to nascent Russian-Eurasian civilization. In a televised
guideline specifically dedicated to Poland, Alexander Dugin posits that Polands role in the
geopolitics of the last few centuries has been, frankly speaking, unenviable. At one point this
country, especially in the heyday of the Polish-Lithuanian Kingdom, was a fully-fledged regional
hegemon.159 Translated into geopolitical terms, recognized here is a once formidable attempt at
forging an independent, Polish geopolitical pole which, Dugin proceeds to recount, posed a
serious threat to the Russian-Eurasian project and preserved its independence from aggressive
Germanic neighbors...But in the 17th century, the era of truly independent and great Poland
ended, and she turned into a kind of no-mans land.160 The classical Eurasianists also noticeably
attribute to the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth a regional-power status which had the
potential to establish its own hegemonic project but, Savitsky writes, Moscow turned out to be a
suitable unifying center in the Eurasian state system. Lithuania-Poland did not turn out to be such
a center.161 The Poland-Lithuanian projects incorporating of parts of Western Eurasia into its
own pole is deemed unviable, since Polands Romano-Germanic heritage is seen as
irreconcilable with the essence of Eurasian civilization and the laws of sacred geography and
geopolitics.162 In a 1998 interview, Dugin asserts: Polish-Lithuanian civilization did not want
or could not define itself [between Eurasian and European civilization], therefore it had to
disappear.163Obviously,thistendencycanbetracedbacktoPolandsgeographicalprofile.
159
Dugin,Aleksandr,07.07.2016, :
,
Katehon,
<http://katehon.com/ru/directives/razrushit-sanitarnyy-kordon-obama-v-polshe>
[21.05.2017]
160
Ibid.
161
Savitsky,1928,opcit.
162
AleksandrDuginoPolsce,25.02.2012,
163
Ibid.
58

The end of the period of Polands historical incarnation as an independent hegemonic

project in the form of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth is equated to the end of Polish
geopolitical sovereignty. Dugin says: From this time on, Poles became an object of the
geopolitics of other countries.164 The evidence that the Eurasianists saw this as inevitable given
Polands elementary geographical precariousness is paradigmatically encapsulated in
Trubetzkoys harkening to nature having its way. The partitions of Poland in the 18th century
are alluded to in passing by Trubetzkoy as ultimately unfavorable for Russia165 and the end of the
Russian Empires domination of Poland was even positively appreciated in the light of having
reinforced the Eurasian destiny of Russia.166 Nevertheless, the partitions were seen as
geopolitically inevitable insofar as the Polish-Lithuanian project attempted to establish an
alternative and culturally alien center in Eurasia whose geopolitical extermination was an
episode typical of European dynastic politics, for it enlarged most advantageously the territories
oftwoEuropeanpowersborderingonRussia.167
It is at this point that Eurasianist geopolitical diagnoses attribute to Poland a distinct lack
of subjectivity, i.e., Poland is portrayed as an object of more often than not Atlanticist schemes.
The contemporary Eurasianist Alexandr Bovdunov thus summarizes his analysis of historical
and contemporary Polish foreign policy: In basic geopolitical terms, which contrasts
tellurocratic to thalassocratic approaches to domination and the opposition between the interests
of Atlanticist vs. continental powers, this Polish project bears a clearly anti-Russian and
therefore Atlanticist orientation.168 The term most often employed in Eurasianist works on this
matter is cordon sanitaire, a geostrategic wedge employed by the Atlanticist powers to contain
Heartland (Russia-Eurasia) and continental Europe, principally Germany, a doctrine first
proposed by Mackinder of the Anglo-Saxon geopolitical school.169 The Second Polish Republic
and its contemporary geostrategies of Prometheism (attributed to Jozef Pilsudski) and
Intermarium, a project by the Polish cartographer and geographer E. Romer, todays Polands
164
Dugin,Aleksandr,07.07.2016,opcit.
165
Trubetzkoy,1991,opcit.,p.206
166
op
cit.,
p.
73
167
Trubetzkoy,1991,opcit.,ibid.
168
Bovdunov,A.10.05.2016,Poland:TheJagiellonian Alternative,
Katehon,
<http://katehon.com/article/poland-jagiellonian-alternative>, [21.05.2017]
169
59

role as the Eastern Flank of NATO and its active participation in the European Unions
Eastern Partnership are all identified by Bovudnov as pure manifestations of Atlanticism and the
cordon sanitaire. Moreover, Bovdunov defines Polish discourse on Central and Eastern
Europe as a political invention whose function is to maintain the cordon sanitaires integrity
and the perception of Russia as the Other170, in the geopolitical practice of which a leading
role in the creation of an anti-Russian bloc is assigned to...Poland.171 Dugin calls the
instrumentalization of Poland in this regard the gap between Polish self-consciousness and the
real arrangement of things [which has been] used by the Atlanticist powers in which Polish
ambitions rising out of imperial Polish-Lithuanian irredentism have long since served a
subsidiaryfunctionintheGreatGameofanaltogetherdifferentlevel.172
If Polands naturally restricted geopolitical duality has been historically characterized
by a tendency towards an Atlanticist instrumentalization, then the question obviously begs itself:
what is the converse scenario? Does duality not imply an equal flipside to the equation, i.e., a
potential Eurasian Poland? Eurasianist references to Poland and subsequently enabled inferences
seem to indicate two levels of analysis offering different dimensional answers to this question. In
the classical approach regarding Eurasia proper, i.e., the Russia-Eurasia of the classical
Eurasianists, the practically unanimous assertion that Poland does not belong to Eurasian
civilization and that Russia-Eurasia has no claims towards Poland suggests what the interwar
Polish commentator on Eurasianism, Marian Zdziechowski, concluded, namely, that Eurasianism
would not be imperialist nor pro-Tsarist and thus Eurasianism can be co-existed with.173
However, this theoretically possible neutrality is historically annulled by the fact that Poland has
traditionally fallen into the Romano-Germanic or Atlanticist camp which is decisively
antagonistic vis-a-vis Eurasia, hence Trubetzkoys qualification: Poland had been Russias
enemy primarily as the spearhead of an invasive movement by European civilization and
170
Bovdunov,A.,26.01.2016,CentralEurope
Discourseandits
Political
Function,
Katehon,
<http://katehon.com/article/central-europe-discourse-and-its-political-function>, [21.05.2017]
171
Bovdunov,A.,16.02.2016,EasternEurope:
Civilizational
Specialityand
Modern Geopolitical
Situation,
Katehon,<http://katehon.com/article/eastern-europe-civilizational-specialty-and-modern-geopolitical-situation>,
[21.05.2017]
172
173
Backer,Roman,2007,opcit.,p.315.
60

Catholicism.174 However, interestingly enough, if we transcend the classical, two-dimensional

geopolitical model of classical Eurasianism and immerse ourselves in the three-dimensional
model of neo-Eurasianism attributed to Alexander Dugin, then we in fact find in Eurasianist
analyses a variety of scenarios for Polands geopolitical potential in relation to Europe and
Russia-Eurasia.
In the two-dimensional model which pits Romano-Germanic European civilization
against the civilization of Russia-Eurasia, Poland is the spearhead of the former. But in the
three-dimensional model which posits a Europe that is fundamentally continental and shares
geopolitical fate with Russia-Eurasia proper in the form of Greater Europe (European New
Right), Eurasia as the Old World (Dugin), or Eurasianism in the context of the 21st century
(Savin175), then Polands position and possibilities on the geopolitical map are relatively more
subjective. In this perspective, the cordon sanitaire is not only an anti-Eurasian project, but
equally an anti-European project insofar as it represents part of the strategic Atlanticist
subjugation of Europe and the undermining of potential geopolitical rapprochement between
Continental Europe and Russia-Eurasia. This positions Poland, as the key pivot of the cordon
sanitaire, against both of its flanks in a kind of imitation of the Polish-Lithuanian outline as
re-processed through the lens of Atlanticist hegemony as opposed to a uniquely sovereign Polish
project.176 Dugins analysis here is unambiguous: The most effective method of thalassocracy is
the cordon sanitaire, i.e., a pole of several border states hostile towards both their Eastern and
Western neighbors, and directly tied to the Atlanticist pole. Poland traditionally acts in the role
of this cordon sanitaire177 Dugin deems this cordon sanitaire to be untenable and inevitably
slated for partition, and thus concludes that in this scenario Poland is faced with the geopolitical
choice of choosing in which empire to be and in what roles.178 It is on these grounds and in this
context that he asserts that Russiais not interested in the existence of an independent Polish
stateinanyform.179
174
175
Savin,10.10.2016,opcit.
176
Bovdunov,10.05.2016,opcit.
177
Dugin,2000,opcit.,pp.369-370
178
179
AleksandrDuginoPolsce,25.02.2012,op
cit.
61

Alternatively, Polands dualism and border position can manifest itself in a positive,
constructive scenario in which Poland does not serve the geopolitical function of a cordon
sanitaire, but rather a bridge between Russia-Eurasia and Europe with varying subjective
capabilities. Ronald Lasecki, a contemporary Polish commentator on Eurasianism, suggests on
the basis of an analysis of geopolitical theories of Greater Europe and Eurasian integration that
Polands unique position within the zone of Baltic Europe affords it the potential of a bridge
linking East and West.180 While Dugin criticizes this notion, concluding that in the geopolitical
long-term organizing this region in accordance with Eurasianist principles is practically
impossible, he does concede such to be an intermediary, strategic step on the way to
fully-fledged Great European or Greater Eurasian integration in which a special status is
delegated to Poland.181 According to this alternative model, Polands dual cultural heritage and
regional interests must encourage it to bridge the gap between the European East and European
West, become a model for the construction of a European Europe.182 This can manifest itself
in a regional union or federation whose interests lie in promoting dialogue between European
and Eurasian unions which in turn ensures that the pendulum of Polands geopolitical and
cultural dualism does not swing too qualitatively far in one direction or another nor antagonize
neighboring Germany and Russia. In another vector briefly addressed by the contemporary
Eurasianist Leonid Savin, this could manifest itself in pragmatic Polish-Russian cooperation in
which Poland could nevertheless become a valuable ally of Moscow on the political field in the
European Union.183 The contemporary Eurasianist Sergey Biryukov similarly hypothesizes in
contemporarygeopoliticalcircumstances:
Through the process of European integration, in the framework of which Germany plays the role of the
economic and political motor, Poland would enter the European family of nations as a full member
while Russia, establishing close and promising partnership with the EU over the process of creating four
large spaces, would contribute to this inclusion. In turn, this would allow Poland to be transformed from
180
Lasecki,R.06.11.2013,EuropaBatycka,nie Europa rodkowo-Wschodnia (lune
rozwaania
nad
geopolityk
PolskiiEuropy),Geopolityka,
<http://www.geopolityka.org/analizy/ronald-lasecki-europa-baltycka-nie-europa-srodkowo-wschodnia-luzne-rozwaz
ania-nad-geopolityka-polski-i-europy>,[21.05.2017]
181
Dugin,A.,2000,opcit,p.372.;Biryukov,
S.,
18.06.2009, :

,
AgenstvoPoliticheskikhNovostey,<http://www.apn.ru/publications/article21737.htm>>, [21.05.2017];
Kosmach,
G.A.,2006,
,
Minsk,<https://goo.gl/lav7Ju>[21.05.2017]
182
Lasetsky,R.,28.01.2016,WhywithRussia? Part
II,
Katehon,
<http://katehon.com/article/why-russia-part-ii>,
[21.05.2017]
183
Renesanseurazjatyzmu,22.12.2011,Xportal, <http://xportal.pl/?p=1473> [21.05.2017]
62

a geopolitical barrier into an integration bridge between Europe, Germany, and Russia as strategic
partners. To this end, however, all three sides must develop a balanced and constructive approach to the
issue,takingintoaccountnotideologies,
but
real
possibilities interests.184
and
For Lasecki, Savin, as well as the Polish Eurasianist Mateusz Piskorski, the common
denominator lies in that Polands geopolitical sovereignty depends on its facilitation of dialogue
between Russia-Eurasia and Europe within the Greater Europe model and its maximal utilization
of the resources and opportunities offered by the position of a regional advocate of this project.185
While for Piskorski this connotes a pragmatization or economization of Polish foreign policy
to avoid the pitfalls of Polands dualism, for Lasecki this prospect is of cultural and civilizational
necessity to curtail the distorting effects of over-emphasizing Polands Romano-Germanic
heritage which binds it to Western Modernity and according Atlanticist geopolitical processes as
crystallized in Adam Mickiewiczs assertion of a meta-historical antagonism between the Polish
and Russian national ideas.186 In essence, it is argued that Poland needs Russia-Eurasia to rescue
European geopolitical and civilizational sovereignty, in which Poland necessarily has a certain
stake. On the other hand, Poland needs geopolitical cooperation between Europe and
Russia-Eurasia for the sake of protecting particular Eastern and Slavic facets of its own
identity which are otherwise threatened by its sole attachment to what the Eurasianists termed
Romano-Germanic Europe. Accordingly, Polands geopolitical raison detre lies in the Greater
Europe model in which it plays the role of a bridge, the possibility of which is conditioned by
Polands place on the mental map of Europe. Lasecki writes: We will not preserve our
identity if we do not build Greater Europe. We cannot build greater Europe if the Berlin-Moscow
axis does not arise.187 This, in essence, is Polands Eurasian alternative. In what concrete form
this bridge between Russia-Eurasia and Europe would be realized and what the terms of any
union, federation, or bloc tying Europe and Eurasia into a single continental great space would
be are left to the specific ideological contours of a European analogue of Eurasianism, a
184
Biryukov,S.,18.06.2009,:, Agenstvo Politicheskikh
Novostey,
<<http://www.apn.ru/publications/article21737.htm>>, [21.05.2017]
185
Arnoldski,J.,04.11.2017ExclusiveFort
Russ
interview
withMateuszPiskorski,
FortRuss,
<http://www.fort-russ.com/2015/11/exclusive-fort-russ-interview-with.html> ,
[21.05.2017]
186
Lasetsky,R.,27.01.2016,WhywithRussia?
Part
I,
Katehon,
<http://katehon.com/article/why-russia-part-i>,
[21.05.2017]
187
Lasecki,R.,02.10.2014,CoBiaorusinimog
da
Polsce?,
Geopolityka,
<http://www.geopolityka.org/analizy/ronald-lasecki-co-bialorusini-moga-dac-polsce>, [21.05.2017]
63

Europeanism or Identitarianism, depending on the varying emphasis of geopolitical or

ethno-cultural factors.188 If geopolitical push comes to shove, however, it is clear in Eurasianist
geopolitical deliberations that the Polish problem in the face of the cordon sanitaire would
solvedbyforce,i.e.,partition,orabandonmenttoGermandomination.189
havetobe
In the Eurasianist geopolitical analysis, Poland thus occupies a precarious position.
Polands elementary geographical situation and corresponding geopolitical predicament exclude
geopolitical sovereignty. Instead, Poland is faced with instrumentalization as a (1) wedge
separating rival European and Eurasian projects or (2) obstructing European-Eurasian
integration; the prospect of a (3) bridge between European and Eurasian projects with varying
degrees of bargained subjectivity depending on the terms of a given scenario; or (4) dissipation
into the composition of one hegemonic project or another. Present within the argumentation of
each of these conceptualizations, however, are cultural and ethno-sociological factors which
have thus far been relegated to mention in passing. What are the ethno-sociological and religious
factors repeatedly referred to as fostering Polands dualism which condemn it to geopolitical
objectivization? Who are these dualist Poles attached to Polands geopolitical fate? These
qualifications in the Eurasianists analyses now demand our inquiry. While Eurasianist works
contain relatively few concrete remarks or sketches in the following spheres, they do supply
engaginggeneralizations.
3.3ThedilemmaofthePolishpeople
The historical evolution of the Polish ethnos occupies an equally peculiar position in the
Eurasianists remarks on Eurasias vulnerable western neighbor. Eurasianist works are void of
any concrete discussion of the ethnosociological evolution of the Polish ethnos itself, but the
passing remarks of Trubetzkoy and Dugin offer a brief summary of the Eurasianist interpretation
ofthePolishethnosspecificpositionontheethnicandculturalmap.
188
Lasecki,R.,09.05.2016,opcit.
189
Kosmach,G.A.,2006,

,Minsk,<https://goo.gl/lav7Ju>
[21.05.2017]
64

On the one hand, the Polish ethnos is presented as having consolidated earlier than the
Russian super-ethnos or Eurasian mega-ethnos, as by the 12th century having taken definite
shape and a rather developed form with its own state and acceptance of Christianity.190 This
Polish ethnos is identified by Trubetzkoy as an indistinguishable member of Romano-Germanic
culture, a province of Romano-Germanic Europe whose intellectuals contributed
monumentally to Romano-Germanic culture and science.191 Trubetzkoy emphasizes that Poland
was not included in Genghis Khans empire192, and therefore lacked this experience that was
crucial to the ethnogenetic and civilizational formation of the Eurasian people. Following the
Union of Krewo in 1386, a fully-fledged Polish model consisting of Catholicism,
szlachectwo and panstvo, European culture, the predominance of Latin in religion (Catholic
masses) and the Polish language is presented by Dugin as posing serious competition in the
ethnogenetic processes of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, i.e., Western Eurasia.193 Attempts at
expanding the Polish ethnos or the potential emergence of a Polish super-ethnos within the
framework of the Polish-Lithuanian project were historically unsuccessful, although not without
lasting effects on the ethnic consciousness and language of the Ukrainian ethnos, which is still
seenaspartofthegreaterRussiansuper-ethnos.
On the other hand, Dugin emphasizes the pre-Christian, Slavic heritage of the Polish
ethnos as essentially a Eurasian element or root which is in constant conflict with its Catholic
and Romano-Germanic heritage: Poland cannot in full realize its Eurasian-Slavic elements as
long as Catholicism prevents such, nor can it realize its Western-European identity when its own
Slavicness, i.e., language, customs, archetypes, climate, disturbs this.194 For Dugin, the Polish
ethnos pre-Christian, pagan ethnic experience represents the Slavo-Eurasian sources of
Polishness.195 This dualism renders the Polish ethnos just as precarious as Polands geopolitical
situation, as the dilemma between Polands Slavic and Romano-Germanic facets condemns it to
190
191
Trubetzkoy,1991,opcit.,pp.88-89,251.
192
Sarsambekova,A.,2012,:

(
),Astana,Ministry of
Science
andEducationoftheRepublicofKazakhstan, L.N.Gumilev
Eurasian
National
University,
Institute
of
Eurasian
Studies,p.71.
193
Dugin,2011,opcit.,p.493
194
AleksandrDuginoPolsce,25.02.2012,op cit.
195
Ibid.
65

necessarily being attached to the Romano-Germanic or Eurasian worlds, never in full realizing
its own ethnic identity. In terms of what Dugin posits to be the unavoidable question of Polish
geopolitics - existing within one empire or another - he therefore frames Polish induction into
theEurasianprojectasawelcomehometothecommonSlavichome.196
For Lasecki, it is the Slavic subsoil of the Polish ethnos that is constant, and therefore
accentuating the Polish ethnos Slavic traditions is crucial to preserving Polands unique
ethnosociological identity between the gravitational poles of Europe and Eurasia.197 In this view,
the Romano-Germanic, or Latin birthmarks of the Polish ethnos are variables which were
ultimately metabolized by the overarching Slavic ethnic framework. Taking Laseckis analysis to
its logical conclusion suggests that the Polish ethnos is not necessarily split or schizophrenic as
Dugin seems to argue, but a unique syncretism or variant lending itself towards realization as an
ethno-cultural bridge. The relative paucity of ethnosociological discussions of Poland in
Eurasianist works, however, relegates the question of such to the realm of speculation or
interpretivededuction.
3.4TheChristofNations:Polandsreligiousbirthmark
The role of Christianization in the Catholic tradition in the foundation of Polish statehood
and identity remains the most glaring issue for Eurasianists and perhaps the central contradiction
between Poland and the Eurasian world. As discussed earlier, for the Eurasianists, Catholicism
represents a corrupt heresy whose proponents, Poland included, were habitually in the forefront
of civilizational crusades against Russia-Eurasia, and whose values were alien to Eurasias rich
religious traditions. Catholicism is viewed as both the metaphysical factor, the religious
signboard of Romano-Germanic civilizations aggression and as part and parcel of Modernity
which pitted Europe against the rest of humanity and, ultimately, its own indigenous traditions,
such as Polands pre-Christian, pagan traditions appreciated by Dugin. The Eurasianists identify
196
197
Lasecki,28.01.2016,opcit.
66

Catholicism as a central cornerstone of Polish civilizational identity and statehood, and therefore
asthemetaphysicalrootofPolandsnon-Eurasianandoftenanti-Eurasianorientation.
For Dugin, the Christianization of Poland in the Roman Catholic tradition and the
corresponding socio-political processes therein mark the milestone through which Poland
abandoned its Slavo-Eurasian elements and irrevocably drifted towards Romano-Germanic
civilization insofar as Catholicism is understood as the religious matrix of this pole.198 The fact
that Poland received its Christianization from neighboring Bohemia is especially telling, since
the Eurasianists identify the Czechs as strictly Romano-German.199 In undergoing the
socio-political processes of conversion described by Przemyslaw Urbanczyk200, Poland shed its
primordial, ethnic Slavic identity and adopted the civilizational traditions of Romano-Germanic
Europe, including the practice of salvational conversion which clashed with pagan traditions and
Orthodoxy in Western Eurasia. On the political level, this meant that Polands statehood did not
develop along the lines of the Orthodox, Byzantine model of the symphony of power which
the Eurasianists recognize to be a crucial part of the Eurasian tradition and an organic form of
ideocracy. According to Dugin, the Catholic Slavs chose exclusively Western political-state and
legal models, copying the Franco-Anglo system.201 Dugin elaborates in broader terms:
Catholicism is anti-Byzantinism, while Byanztinism is the full and authentic Christianity which
includes not only simple dogmatic purity, but also fidelity to the socio-political and state doctrine
of Christianity.202 Specifically applied to Polands metaphysical relation to Eurasia, this ensures
that Poland finds itself in the sacred geographical space of the West: What does this have to
do with sacred geography? In our understanding, the West is conceived as a territory dominated
by Catholicism and Protestantism...In this context, Poland finds itself on the border between the
CatholicandOrthodoxworlds.203
198
Dugin,A.,12.10.2016,opcit.
199
Trubetzkoy,N.S.,1921, (

), <http://gumilevica.kulichki.net/TNS/tns09.htm> [06.06.2017]
200
SeeUrbanczyk,Przemyslaw,ThePoliticsof
Conversion
in
North Central
Europe,
in
Carver,
Martin,
2003,The
CrossGoesNorth:ProcessesofConversionin Northern
Europe,AD 300-1300,
The
Boydell
Press,pp.
15-28.
201
Dugin,A.,2002,O,Moscow, Akrtogeya,p.
747
202
203
cit.
67

The most crucial elaboration of the Eurasianists in this regard thus lies in the following:
Catholicism made Poland Western in spirit. Catholicism is seen not merely as a religion opposed
to the Orthodox tradition and other spiritual components that make up the Eurasian whole, but as
a parody of Tradition itself which laid the groundwork for European Modernity and in turn
Protestantism, which is considered to be the epitome of the Western religious tradition and
Atlanticism.204 In Dugins analysis, Catholicism is not a bastion of the resistance of Tradition to
Modernity, but a transitional stage towards this order205 which preludes the evolution of
secularism, capitalism, individualism, and liberalism which are incompatible with Eurasian
civilization and have corrupted Europe. Thus, Polands Catholic nature is seen as having not only
connected it to Romano-Germanic civilization, but also to the degradative processes of European
civilization which produced the secular, Atlanticist, existentially anti-Eurasian civilization of the
West. This leads Dugin to assert that any genuine Eurasianist transformation of Poland would
require the disassembly of the Catholic component of Polish identity, achieved by means of
either a return to pre-Christian Slavic paganism or the promotion of esoteric cults, a thesis which
isanalogoustothatofmuchoftheEuropeanNewRight.206
According to Bovdunov, Catholicism also lies at the heart of Polish geopolitical
messianism and irredentism that serve principally Atlanticist ends.207 Adam Mickiewiczs
presentation of Poland as the Christ of nations and Andrzej Towianskis apocalyptic
messianism, as well as the works of Juliusz Slowacki and Bronislaw Trentowski are seen as the
epitome of emphasizing Polands purported role as the Catholic vanguard of European
civilization. In Dugins comments on Towianski208 and his esoteric tract on the Polish writer
Stanisaw Ignacy Witkiewicz entitled Parallel Poland, or the Insatiable Witkiewicz, one can
detect an esoteric implication that Polish apocalyptic messianism is an inverse reflection of a
parallel Poland that indirectly confirms the Russian-Eurasian eschatological mission explored
byDugin.
Intypicalesotericfashion,Duginwrites:
204
Dugin,A.,16.10.2016,TheCrusadeAgainstUs,
Eurasianist
InternetArchive,
<https://eurasianist-archive.com/2016/10/16/the-crusade-against-us/>, [21.05.2017]
205
cit.
206
SeeOMeara,M.,2013,NewCulture,New
Right:Anti-Liberalismin
PostmodernEurope
,
Arktos,
London.
207
Bovdunov,10.05.2016,opcit.
208
Dugin,Alexandr,[26.11.2016],Facebookpost
<https://www.facebook.com/alexandr.dugin/posts/1372389752771061> [21.05.2017]
68

Indeed, Poland is enchanting. There one finds depths and secrets, labyrinths of horror and dungeons of
passion. This Polish Poland is important and beautiful, revealed, discovered, pulled out of
European-Catholic ugliness. This is the polar, bottomless, completely and utterly insane, bloody,
unquenchable, unearthly Poland - tearing itself away from us and incapable of attaching itself again,
alienated, and scouring the bottom of hell to find its way backThis parallel Poland genuinely interests us.
209
This Poland scouring the bottom of hell to find its way back, ostensibly held back by its
Catholic-induced antinomies, is proposed to be like us, Russians, under Byzantium, and all
your complexes will evaporate in two counts.210 Asserting that Poland is the final word of
world history, Dugin thus inversely affirms Poland as the Christ of nations, whose
crucifixion and transformation is of global repercussions. In the context of Dugins synthesis
of geopolitics and esotericism, the meaning behind this is clear: Polish messianisms national
suicide211 through its doomed Catholic and Romano-Germanic crusade will necessarily,
prophetically bring about the transformation of Poland through the destruction of its present
form, and by extension the resurrection of Europe and Eurasia. This nuance is in big
geopolitics,Duginconcludes.212
3.5.PolandbetweenEuropeandEurasia
Polands place in Eurasianism and the Eurasianists civilizational map is therefore

exceptionally curious and thereby demonstrative of the unique analytical qualities and
assumptions of the Eurasianist school of thought. Being at once not part of Russia-Eurasian
civilization and deemed incapable of forging its own civilizational pole, as allegedly
demonstrated in the case of the failed Polish-Lithuanian project, Poland is ultimately seen as a
borderland. While this borders emergent statehood is historically attributed to being part of the
Romano-Germanic world, even this position itself, by virtue of peculiarly dualistic geographic,
geopolitical, and cultural factors, is deemed untenable, since Polands inherent dualism prevents
it from fully conforming to one bloc or another, a virtue which has historically lent it towards
209
Dugin,Aleksandr,20.08.2011,
,

,
Maxpark,
<http://maxpark.com/user/556697085/content/790252>, [21.05.2017]
.
210
211
Ibid.
212
Ibid.
69

instrumentalization as a wedge or divisive pivot by external forces. This division, in the

Eurasianists understanding of geopolitical and civilizational processes operating on Europe and
Eurasia, is inevitably slated for liquidation. Poland, therefore, like any border, is subject to
change, dispute, partition, and fluctuation depending on the forces operating on either side of it.
In the Eurasianist analysis, the most favorable scenario for Poland in this regard is the role of a
bridge facilitating the rapprochement of European and Eurasian civilization, a role which
necessarily means a transformation of Polish identity itself. But does this not mean the end of
Poland itself as a border, its dissipation into the convergence of two civilizations at whose
crossroads it has stood to varying degrees and in different capacities as an existential
raison
detat over the course of history? The Eurasianist voices considered over the course of our study
seem to suggest that this depends on the subjective choice of Poland itself. This in turn gives rise
to the question of a Polish metabolization of Eurasianism engaged in discovering Polands place
just as the Eurasianists sought to uncover that of Russia-Eurasia. This highlights not only the
nature of Eurasianism as a school of thought which could theoretically be metabolized or met
with an analogue on the part of other civilizations, but the extremely specific, unique, border role
of Poland insofar as its choice thus directly affects the make-up and terms of the space
separating, or linking, Eurasia and Europe. In the words of Dugin, this is a genuinely dramatic
situation,213thetheoreticalandresearchimplicationsofwhichatlastdeserveconsideration.
213
cit.
70

CONCLUSION
The foregoing treatise has explored the history and intellectual components of
Eurasianism and attempted to investigate Eurasianisms perceptions of Polands civilizational
profile. Unlike most scholars who approach Eurasianism as an ideology or veiled manifestation
of this or that political motive, we have examined Eurasianism as a school of thought with its
own assorted arsenal of analytical and interpretative categories, a standpoint which we believe
coherently explains the history of the Eurasianist movement and the vitality of its ideas from its
inception in the 1920s to its present embodiment in neo-Eurasianism. As a token of this
discernment, we turned to a case study in the Eurasianists analysis of Poland, scouring
Eurasianist works for expressions on this neighbor of the Eurasianists Russia-Eurasia and
applying the lenses of Eurasianist analytics to conclude that Poland occupies a specifically
perilous position as a border-state suspended in constant civilizational dilemma in the
geographical, geopolitical, ethnosociological, and religionist perspectives of the Eurasianist
outlook which we outlined. This research not only uncovered hitherto unstudied Eurasianist
views on the Polish question, but also affirmed in practice our thesis that Eurasianism is best
understood as a school of thought which, having its own analytical assumptions and categories,
isapplicablebeyondtheEurasianistsownsubject,Russia-Eurasia.
Over the course of our study, several questions arose which bear important clarification
for scholarship on Eurasianism. The classification of Eurasianism as a school of thought does not
neutralize the question of when or how Eurasianism could possibly be transformed from a school
of thought and instrumentalized into an ideology. Accordingly, given such a possibility, the
question begs itself: at one point would Eurasianist observations on Russia-Eurasia and the
outside world become ideological, not analytical or even scholarly in nature? This question
demands interdisciplinary study in the history of ideas, socio-political processes in the modern
Russian Federation, and attentive analysis of existing political movements which claim fidelity
to Eurasianism, in particular Alexander Dugins International Eurasian Movement and the
Eurasian Movement of the Russian Federation. In the form of a proposal, perhaps comparisons
with the evolution of Marxism would bear enlightening fruit. Also useful would be research into
71

movements outside of the post-Soviet space which claim to represent or model themselves on
Eurasianism. Are these movements Eurasianist? Scholars have only begun to address this
question in regards to Eurasianist tendencies in Turkey, Japan, and among the European far right,
but do so strictly on the grounds that Eurasianism itself has since the very beginning been an
ideology, a thesis which weve argued to be inadequate. This question also implies research into
AlexanderDuginsthree-dimensionalemploymentofthetermEurasian.
Secondly, and intimately connected with the above, could Eurasianisms framework be
metabolized or paralleled by other countries and civilizations intellectuals to study their own
propensities and identity? Would a European dissection of European history and identity using
Eurasianisms terms and categories form a Europeanism or European Eurasianism, or would
such merely be a Eurasianist analysis of Europe? This distinction and according theoretical
questions involve the political sciences and are impossible to approach without first
understanding Eurasianism as a school of thought, the groundwork for which we have striven to
layhere.
Thirdly, are Eurasianist remarks on Poland useful for Polish historians and
historiography? Do the Eurasianists commentary on Polish identity and the framework they
employ offer a perspective which is worth evaluating by historians of Poland? Does Polish
history validate or negate the Eurasianists perceptions of their western neighbor? This detailed
and extensive historical account is obviously beyond the scope of the present work, but is a
logicallyensuingendeavor.
Overall, scholarship on Eurasianism is relatively young. Numerous more questions can
be raised while scholars still continue to bid on defining this phenomenon and its significance.
The present paper sees itself as at once building on and resituating the work that has been done in
thisfield,justastheEurasianistssawthemselvesasarevolutioninanage-oldparadigm.
72

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Poland's Place in Eurasia: Eurasianism As An Analytical Framework and The Polish Question

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UNIVERSITYOFWROCAW

of self-identityshould be built. And to this end is needed an about-turn in the consciousness of

which, moreover, was identified as fundamentally conservative and holistic as opposed to

theological, facets of Eurasianism as opposed to voluntarist syncretization with existing political

must be viewed as a school of thought, an intellectual trend containing a diverse arsenal of

This definitive nature of Eurasianism was also evidenced by the resuscitation of

In considering both the divergent and unifying elements of Eurasianism as a school of

In all of the Eurasianists discussions of the geography of Eurasia, geographical space is

The quality of space is manifested in the concept of spatial development or topogenesis,

The Eurasianists underlining of the importance of geographical territory directly

The greatest attention to developing a Eurasianist ethnosociological perspective was, as

The theory of ethnogenesis is Gumilevs interpretation of the historical cycles of ethnoi.

The next phase in the development of a Eurasianist ethnosociological perspective is the

Gumilevs coarse bio-materialism in his ethnosociological analysis is counterposed by

Indeed, the Eurasianists position Russia as a bastion of living Tradition against

Eurasianist deliberations on Poland represent a unique case study in the application of

set by the Eurasianists in their presentations of Russia-Eurasia. Interestingly enough, the

Galicia is a natural geographic extension of Eurasian territory.144 In another place, he claims

unsuccessfully) contested by Poland-Lithuania.149 Eurasianist references to Poland seem to

The end of the period of Polands historical incarnation as an independent hegemonic

Catholicism.174 However, interestingly enough, if we transcend the classical, two-dimensional

Europeanism or Identitarianism, depending on the varying emphasis of geopolitical or

Polands place in Eurasianism and the Eurasianists civilizational map is therefore

instrumentalization as a wedge or divisive pivot by external forces. This division, in the

15. Dugin, A., : , Moscow, Arktogeya,

31. Lipanov, A.V., , Moscow, Institute of Slavic Studies of

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