Korolev A. A. The Emergence and Development of Eurasianism’s Main Concepts

(Moscow University for the Humanities)

Abstract ♦ The article analyses the emergence and development of Eurasianism and its fundamental concepts as expressed by its ideologists and proponents, such as N.S. Trubetskoy, P.N. Savitskii, G.V. Florovskii, P.N. Suvchinskii, G.V. Vernadskii, A.L. Liven. This Russian philosophic and political movement reflected both the achievements and deadlocks of the “long” “Silver age” spiritual strivings which were not fully interrupted by World War I and the 1917 Revolution, but continued by Russian emigrants abroad (in the so-called Russian Zarubezhie).

The representatives of Eurasianism (a theory asserting a special character of Russian and related Eastern cultures) raised a number of theoretical and practical issues and in part solved them. Among those issues were choosing a model of social reconstruction of Russian society; tracing the role of natural-climatic, geoeconomic, material, organizational, sociocultural and religious factors and their interconnections; the existence of a distinct Eurasian civilizational path; and determining the social and spiritual role of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Russian society.

The article follows the progress of the Eurasian thinkers' views on history, showing how they challenged the Eurocentric myth and embraced the “Turanic” (Turkic) idea as an explanation for their “Exodus to the East”.

It is also shown that a number of Eurasian ideas, such as the “demotic ruling stratum”, “governing idea”, or the absolutization of the role of Russian Orthodox Church, were of Utopian nature.

Keywords: Eurasian development, Eurasian space, Eurasia, Russian philosophy, Turanic element, “mestorazvitiye” (place-development), Orthodoxy, ideocracy.

Korolev Anatoly Akimovich, Doctor of History, Professor, Department of History, Moscow University for the Humanities; Honoured Scientist of the Russian Federation. Postal address: 5 Yunosti St., 111395 Moscow, Russian Federation. Tel.: +7 (499) 374-55-81. E-mail: anatoliy-korolev@rambler.ru

Citation: Korolev, A. A. (2014) Stanovlenie i razvitie evraziiskikh idei [The emergence and development of Eurasianism’s main concepts]. Znanie. Ponimanie. Umenie, no. 4, pp. 168–180. (In Russ.).

Submission date: 20.05.2014.

RUSSIAN VERSION

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