The ideology of Eurasianism originated in Russia around the beginning of the twenties. On the one hand, the creators of the theory were not distinguished by ardent intolerance towards communist politics, but they also did not feel any particular commitment to the Bolsheviks, condemning the accepted practice. The doctrine developed in those years was aimed at explaining the very fact of the existence of the Soviet country, so unusual, alien to the rest of the planet both from the point of view of the economy and the social structure. Politicians, philosophers, ideologists of those times set themselves the task of determining the place of power on the planet and forming the path that needs to be passed.
Big Picture
The period when the foundations of Eurasianism were laid was marked by pronounced instability of the entire planet. In the western countries the bourgeoisie reigned, in the eastern countries there were still colonies. Thinkers of that time came to the conclusion that all powers are literally doomed. On the basis of such an idea, it was decided that it was Soviet Union will bring to our civilization those new trends that will help to renew the whole civilization. The basic ideas that were supposed to improve life on the entire planet were not socialist, communist, atheistic, revolutionary, at the same time they were formed by the reality that surrounded the figures of the twenties of the last century - Soviet life with all its characteristic features.
The Eurasianism of Russia is both a historical concept and a political doctrine. Its roots lie in Slavophilism, the ideas of Westernism had a strong influence. It must be said that for the first time the theses, then embodied in this theory, were voiced long before the formation of the Soviets: as early as the beginning of the nineteenth century, Karamzin wrote in his works that there should be an elevation of a country located between the west and east, which combined the features of all neighbors. The works of Danilevsky, who spoke more than once about the hostility of the European powers towards the Slavs, played their role. It is believed that the development of Eurasianism was largely predetermined by the postulates of Leontiev, who worked on the theory of Byzantism. However, the closest source is Lamansky, whose ideas actually represent Eurasianism in its highest form, devoid of the external influence of revolutionary troubles and the power of the Soviets.
Why and why?
The essence of Eurasianism is not only in the restoration of Russia's rightful position, but also in a new reading historical facts rethinking what has already happened in the history of our civilization. The ardent supporters of this idea called for considering our state not at all an element of Europe and not even a new civilization developing in the footsteps of the Romano-Germanic one. The idea was to look for origins in the Golden Horde, Byzantium and other eastern powers that influenced the formation of our culture. In a word, everything Slavic-European has some oriental beginnings that just need to be seen. In this logic, Russia by default cannot be ranked among Europe, so it is impossible and even ridiculous to draw parallels between the development of our country and, say, France.
Interest is getting stronger
The founders of Eurasianism were able to attract the attention of the best minds of the emigrant elite to their ideas. Surprisingly, it took them a record short time to do so. Already in 1921, the first book devoted to the ideas of this doctrine was published. Savitsky, a geographer, an outstanding politician, and a thinker, was officially recognized as the founder of the movement. Trubetskoy, Karsavin, Frank, Bitsilli united under the wing of the idea. The community published periodicals under the name "Eurasian Chronicle", and also released several collections.
At present, it is customary to talk about early currents - this is the very beginning of the twenties, and a later wave of interest: the public returned to the theory of Eurasianism in 1927. At first there was a Sophian stage, but the later version was distinguished by the presence of two directions at once: right and left. However, it was the thinkers of the initial stage who showed maximum activity, and by the middle of the decade the movement began to gradually decompose. This was evident both in the variability of concepts and in organizational confusion. In many respects, the postulates of Florovsky, one of the founders of the theory, played their role, who over time fundamentally revised his views and challenged his own statements put forward earlier. This could not but affect the entire direction as a whole. At that moment, for the first time, the constructions of the idea were called reckless, without confirmation, based more on emotions. Florovsky completely left the movement already in 1922. Trubetskoy adhered to the ideas of the movement for a little longer: according to him, the direction completely exhausted itself in 1925, after which the leader left his post, and Karsavin took his post.
Development of events
The second stage of the political doctrine of Eurasianism began after 1925. It was precisely the ideas of politics that became self-sufficient, under the influence of this doctrine as a whole it significantly changed, turned into an ideology. No matter how contradictory to the ideas being promoted, the center moved to Paris. It was here that they began to publish the newspaper of the same name. The first issue was made in 1928. According to many, there was a clear Bolshevik influence in the texts.
The main idea of the newspaper, according to modern analysts, was to establish good neighborly relations with the Soviets. It would seem that using such a tool, you can let other nations and powers understand what a new country is on the world map. The publication gave theoretical foundations Bolshevik power. As many say, it was at that moment that political Eurasianism died completely. The ideology decayed and was doomed to an early oblivion. In 1929, Karsavin and Trubetskoy retired completely and severed all ties with the remnants of the movement.
Program postulates
These were mainly formulated by Trubetskoy, who very responsibly approached the creation, a clear outline of the ideas of Eurasianism. Essential elements:
- creation of a unique cultural concept;
- criticism of Western culture;
- substantiation of idealism, based on the postulates of Orthodoxy;
- understanding the geoethnics of Russia;
- approval of the uniqueness of the ways of development of Eurasia;
- ideocracy of the state.
cultural concept
This idea of Eurasianism is based on general philosophical, historiosophical foundations. Our contemporaries describe the theory as a whole as organic, that is, a full-fledged philosophical direction. It follows from the postulates of the sophist period that the key mistake of the thinkers of the Western European powers was the preference in favor of individualism. At the same time, in Europe, as Karsavin, in particular, argued, there is no spirit of community at all. The philosophy of the Western powers revolves around the individual, unique "I", ignoring the supra-individual spirit, the soul of the people, the country.
Western thinking, as follows from the concept of Eurasianism, recognizes the state as an accumulation of individuals, and evaluates the family and any other formations in society in the same way. Eurasianism recognizes such an interpretation of social groups as a mistake, contradicts the idea in the bud. Both the people and other clusters, formed on the basis of social and cultural factors, are full-fledged organisms. In the ideology of Eurasianism, such people are usually called super-individual.
So with us, and that with them
Formulating the concept of Eurasianism, Karsavin builds a lot on opposing theses generally accepted by European thinkers. By and large, the Russian philosopher basically denies the existence of an individual "I". Reality, the reality that surrounds us, as follows from the theories of Karsavin, simply cannot have a form individual personality, consciousness. This idea, held by individualists, is fundamentally wrong. Personality exists exclusively social, and individual - this is one of its phenomena and nothing more.
At the same time, modern Eurasianism does not deny that for the existence social personality the presence of separate individuals is necessary, while this object is will, consciousness, actualized through individual people. In fact, the social personality does not have the degree of presence in reality, as does the individual representatives of our society. But in Russian philosophy of the 1920s, this moment fell out of the attention of thinkers.
About social personalities
Eurasianism in philosophy is an idea that involves distinguishing social personalities whenever a certain group of people arises, united on the basis of some factor: work, exchange. In this case, it is customary to speak of a short social identity. In addition to it, there are also durable ones. These include humanity as a whole, individual countries, nationalities.
Proving his postulates, Karsavin appeals to the following facts: people have the same logical principles of thinking. Therefore, we can talk about the absolute, enduring meaning of logic, which is expressed in each individual person. This, in turn, suggests that humanity itself thinks in this way, it is simply expressed through individualized forms - individual people. This is exactly what Eurasianism in philosophy is in the period of its active growth and development.
Great and numerous
One of the main terms of Eurasianism is a symphonic personality. It presupposes the diversity of a single organic whole. An alternative concept is the unity of the multitude. In any case, for such a term, the interpretation suggests that there is a multitude, unity, and they simply cannot exist without each other. According to those who adhere to Eurasianism, the individual is a fiction, a fiction, at least in the sense that is generally accepted in philosophical currents.
A person in the understanding of Eurasianism is an object that can somewhat specifically express a supra-individual will. At the same time, he has consciousness, but also an element of the supra-individual and simply expressed through its capabilities and qualities. But the rational European approach, within the framework of which individuality is recognized as separability from others and isolation in itself, for Eurasianism is a completely unacceptable and incorrect, false statement.
That is, we do not have an individual personality?
In fact, Eurasianism is not a theory that completely deprives a person of personality and individuality, as it might seem at first glance. The postulate should be interpreted as follows: a personality is established only when it is correlated with society (class, people). Any social formation is a combined symphonic personality, which is included in a complex hierarchical structure. The higher the level of assembly, the higher the position in the hierarchy.
Composite personalities are closely related to each other, and this process is due to the peculiarities of culture - an instrument of objectification. At the same time, the process of culture is realized only if there is a genetic connection with the generations that lived earlier, as well as within the existing ones at the present time. When culture is seen as such a complex entity, it becomes obvious that there is different periods and stages of development within a closed cultural cycle. They are isolated from the constant series of evolution.
Orthodoxy and philosophy of the twenties
Eurasianism is a theory that was born in the Soviet Union, but considered the Orthodox Church as a perfect cultural process of formation. It was believed that such a religion is the core of the culture of the state, the goal and base, which in many respects declares the very essence of the culture of the people as a phenomenon. Orthodoxy, in its essence, is a collective concept, a church that patronizes the world and unites everyone under its wing with love and faith. Accordingly, faith becomes the very thing that is laid down in the basis of a symphonic personal culture.
The thinkers who adhered to Eurasianism believed that the formation of a national culture is possible only if there are religious prerequisites for this. For our specific base - Orthodoxy. Eurasianism demanded to improve religion and themselves in order to unite in the divine kingdom. Due to the possibilities of Orthodoxy, it was possible to synthesize several currents with a different ideology - and not all of them are included in the framework of a single culture, but also remain outside its borders. Paganism, as Eurasianists have argued, is also potentially an Orthodox religion, since pagans Central Asia, Russia, adopting the experience of other countries, created a unique trend, an optimal form of belief, very different from that adopted in Europe and akin to those living on the territory of our state. The Eurasians were firmly convinced that the Orthodoxy of our country is in many ways close to the religions of the East and has much more in common with them than with European beliefs.
Not everything is so obvious
Berdyaev in his sayings pointed out (and more than reasonably) the obvious contradiction that attracted the attention of the idea of Eurasianism: Orthodoxy, as the followers of philosophy firmly asserted, was the center of Russian, and at the same time, of the entire Eurasian culture. And, as you know, it includes not only Orthodoxy, but also Buddhism, Islam, paganism and other directions.
It was simply impossible to deny it, so the followers of Eurasianism called Orthodoxy the only true religious branch of the universal scale, infallible, true. Everything that went beyond, in their opinion, was paganism, schism, heresy. At the same time, attention was paid to the fact that the accepted religion does not turn away from the Gentiles, although it strives for the formation of our world as Orthodox in its essence.
One of the serious problems, as the followers of Eurasianism claimed, was the abundance of the so-called Christian heresy, that is, people who quite consciously strive for a split. This is both Latinism and enlightenment. Eurasianism also included communism and liberalism here.
History of Russia and Eurasianism
The main idea of the doctrine in question was to present our state as a middle continent, equal to Asia, Europe in its significance and being part of the Old World. Such a statement required understanding Russia as a very special country, occupying a unique position in the history of civilization, which means that the state was called upon to play its role for the whole world.
The exclusivity of Russia was not new by the time the Eurasianists entered the scene. The Slavophiles of the nineteenth century also actively promoted such claims. However, the Eurasianists, although they did not dispute the validity of all the statements of their predecessors without exception, still clashed with many. For the followers of Eurasianism, it was important to separate from the Slavophiles, and for this, first of all, attention was focused on the following statement: Russians are not only Slavs, it is unacceptable to limit nationality in this way.
Slavism and Eurasianism
Savitsky, one of the main authors of the theses related to the national definition, drew attention to the fact that Slavism is too weak, insufficiently demonstrative term, therefore it simply does not allow one to realize all the originality of the cultural wealth of Russia. Czechs, Poles - this is for which Russia is also Byzantism. At the same time, Russia is European elements, Asian, Asian.
It cannot be denied that modern nationality was largely formed under the influence of the Finno-Ugric tribes, the Turks, who lived near the Eastern Slavs for a long time. The presence of components due to such a neighborhood is one of the strongest features of the Russian culture that has developed at the moment. The national substratum of the state is formed by the totality of nationalities living within the borders of the country. The Eurasian nation, as noted by the adherents of Eurasianism, is united by both a place of development and self-knowledge. Such postulates made it possible to successfully isolate themselves from Westernizers, Slavophiles, giving individuality and uniqueness to their teaching.
Eurasianism arose in 1921 in Europe among Russian emigrants and existed until the outbreak of World War II. Its countdown has been going on since 1921, when the first collection of Eurasians, Exodus to the East, was published in Sofia. The main idea of Eurasianism was to justify Russia's leadership in the anti-European global movement. With regard to Asia, the Eurasianists had a rather abstract and romantic position: they placed great hopes on the fruitfulness of Russia's interaction with Asian cultures. In 1926, their program work “Eurasianism. The experience of systematic presentation.
The most famous Eurasians were the geographer P.N. Savitsky (1859-1968), philologist Prince N.S. Trubetskoy (1890-1938), historian G.V. Vernadsky, theologian G.V. Florovsky (1893-1979) and others. P.N. Savitsky, the author of the theory of "place development".
Eurasianism is an ideological and philosophical trend based on the thesis that Russia, occupying the middle space of Asia and Europe, lying at the junction of two worlds - Eastern and Western, represents a special socio cultural world, which unites both beginnings, with the dominant role of the Asian component. Justifying their “middle” position, the Eurasians wrote: “The culture of Russia is neither a European culture, nor one of the Asian ones, nor the sum or mechanical combination of the elements of both. It must be opposed to the cultures of Europe and Asia as a median Eurasian culture. Europe and the West, which had exhausted their spiritual and historical potential, were replaced by messianic Russia as an original Eurasian civilization.
At one time, the publicist and historian P.I. Milyukov, in a discussion with the Eurasianists, noted that Russia, despite its position in Europe and Asia, is by its deepest roots a Byzantine-Greek, Slavic and European state. The Europeanization of Russia is not a product of borrowing, but the result of an internal evolution similar to Europe, but only delayed by environmental conditions. These inhibiting "environmental conditions" were due to Asianism, since Russia took far from the best that Asia was rich in.
A noticeable surge of interest in the ideas of the Eurasianists in modern conditions is associated with Russia's search for its own geopolitical niche in the situation of a "unipolar world".
The key concept in the geopolitical doctrine of the Eurasians, as well as the entire Russian school of geopolitics, is categoryplace of development . The concept of the Eurasianists is based on the position that Russia is neither Europe nor Asia, it is an exceptional country, unlike Europe and having a great kinship with Asia. Russia is a separate, original, integral and organic world, called Russia-Eurasia, a self-sufficient world, the geographical and political boundaries of which historically coincided with the borders of the Russian Empire.
There are many interpretations of the term "place development". One of them belongs to G.V. Vernadsky:
By the place of development of human societies, we understand a certain geographical environment, which imposes the stamp of its features on the human community that develops in this environment.
In this definition socio-historical environment And geographic factor mutually influence each other, forming a single whole. For this reason, the history of the development of the Russian state is a process of adaptation of the Russian people to their place of development - Eurasia, as well as the adaptation of the entire space of Eurasia to the economic and historical needs of the Russian people.
Indeed, in Russian history one can observe various types of large and small local developments. The holistic place of development was the Caspian-Black Sea steppe, river areas - the union of forest and steppe (Dnieper-Kiev, Volga-Bulgarian). The whole of Eurasia as an integral geographical world is a great place for development. It was within the framework of this world that such large empires as the Scythian, Hunnic, or Mongolian, and later the Russian Empire, were formed. In the process of the formation of the Russian Empire, the Russians not only took advantage of the geographical prerequisites of the Eurasian local development, but also to a large extent created "their" Eurasia as a whole, adapting the geographical, economic and ethnic conditions of Eurasia to themselves.
This concept takes on a finished form in the concept of place development by P.N. Savitsky. It is very close to the organist school of F. Ratzel. It is the "place development" that acts as a unifying principle of Russia-Eurasia with all the national, racial, religious, cultural, linguistic, ideological mosaic.
According to P.N. Savitsky, geographical position Russia can be understood through an analysis of the relationship between the center and the periphery. Here is a similarity with the Heartland X. Mackinder model. Russia, as part of the Old World, is a kind of integral unity, in which, on the one hand, the marginal-coastal regions stretching from China to Western Europe inclusive, and on the other hand, its interior regions are opposed.
Separation of Russia-Eurasia from the World Ocean gave rise to a special way of managing. The vast size of the territory and the presence of natural resources are constantly pushing Eurasia to realize its economic self-sufficiency, turning it into an autonomous "continent-ocean". Eurasia in the strict sense of the word, Eurasians note, is no longer divided into Europe and Asia, but into several segments: the middle continent (Eurasia proper) and two peripheral worlds: a) Asian (China, India, Iran); b) European, bordering Eurasia approximately along the line: the Neman River - the Western Bug - the San - the mouth of the Danube. The last frontier is the watershed of two colonization waves from East and West.
Such a geographical position of Russia-Eurasia contributed to the unification and synthesis of the two principles of the Old World - East and West. A new type of culture was formed with features of a mainland (continental) culture as opposed to the oceanic, or rather, the Atlantic culture of Europe, America and, in general, the British-Atlantic model of development. In Russia-Eurasia, a synthesis of European and Asian principles has been carried out.
Later, this type of culture historically developed in Eurasia by L.N. Gumilev named Scythian-Siberian "steppe" style.
The Middle Continent became a "melting pot" for the Slavic-Turkic peoples, who as a result formed an organic fusion of the Russian superethnos: "We must realize the fact: we are not Slavs or Turanians (although there are both among our biological ancestors), but Russians." Its culture was made up of Eurasian culture, synthetic in nature. The originality of the Eurasian culture lies not only in the fact that it is a special ethnic type, but also in the fact that Russia turned out to be almost the only guardian of Orthodoxy according to the Eastern, Greek model. In the work "Europe and Humanity" (1920) N.S. Trubetskoy wrote that Orthodoxy is the core of Eurasian culture.
Russian culture is distinguished from other cultures by its catholicity, nationality, its goal is the historical mission to preserve and multiply the spiritual foundations of mankind.
Eurasianists opposed pan-Slavism, saying that it was created by the champions of Russian great power in the likeness of pan-Germanism. They supported Leontiev's "formula": there is Slavdom, there is no Slavism.
Eurasians had a negative attitude towards the idea of Eurocentrism, European superiority. Under its influence, non-European peoples began to consider European culture as a standard and came to the conclusion about their national inferiority. The result of this was the rejection of national cultures and national roots. The desire to "catch up" with Europe gave rise to the desire to jump over the necessary steps of one's own historical development.
The Eurasianists rejected the liberal state as weak and parliamentary democracy as a perverted form of government, viewing it more as an oligarchy. According to Savitsky, the Eurasian state should have the form of an ideocracy, be a mechanism for the implementation of the idea, which, as a spiritual impulse, is transmitted from top to bottom.
The idea of ideocracy could take a variety of forms: theocracy, "people's monarchy", national dictatorship, party state. One thing is invariable: a special class of "spiritual leaders" should be at the head of this type of state. To recognize them, he introduced the concept of "geographic personality". The dignity of such a personality lies in the ability to rise above material necessity, organically include the physical world in a single spiritual and creative impulse of global historical creativity.
Key thesis, which was clearly carried out in the works of the Eurasians, was that the Asian factor played a more significant role than the Slavic one in the formation of both statehood and the Russian concept of culture.
Savitsky noted that thanks to the Tatar-Mongol invasion, Russia gained its geopolitical independence and retained its spiritual independence from the aggressive Romano-Germanic world. The Eurasians believed that "for the first time the Eurasian cultural world appeared as a whole in the empire of Genghis Khan." The rise of the Russian state from the middle of the XV century. and until the middle of the XVIII century. characterized by the rise of the Muscovite state as the successor and heir of the Golden Horde.
The ideas of the Eurasianists were subjected to serious criticism in many directions.
Neo-Eurasianism L.N. Gumilyov
The ideas of the founder of the geopolitical doctrine of Eurasianism P.N. Savitsky had a huge influence on the largest Russian geographer and historian L.N. Gumilyov (1912-1992).
Although Gumilyov did not directly touch upon geopolitical topics in his works, however, he ethnogenesis theory Andethnic cycles has a deep geopolitical meaning for the formation of Russian geopolitical science. The term "ethnos" was introduced into international scientific use in 1921 by the Russian scientist S.M. Shirokogorov (1887-1939) as a collective term for ethnic communities.
In the scientific literature, there are two main approaches to the definition of ethnicity:
1. An ethnos is a historically emerged community (a form of social organization) of people that has a common territory, language, culture, religion, and other common features. Proponents of this approach proceed from the fact that ethnos is a social phenomenon, because it does not exist outside of its own social institutions at various levels - from the family to society. Consequently, the ethnos is subject to the laws of the development of society and therefore does not have its own laws. Social in a broad sense, they argue, includes ethnic. So the ethnic groups themselves are social institutions.
2. An ethnos is a stable, naturally formed group of people that opposes itself to all other similar groups, which is determined by a sense of complementarity, and is distinguished by a peculiar stereotype of behavior that naturally changes in historical time. Supporters of this approach proceed from the fact that ethnos is a biological (natural) phenomenon, it is a system that is a link, a “bridge” between the social and biological, a phenomenon in which biological features play a decisive role.
L.N. Gumilyov believed that the essence of an ethnos, its unity is a stereotype of behavior: "we are such and such, and all others are different (not us)". In an ethnos, unlike in a society, not conscious decisions work, but sensations and conditioned reflexes. The behavior of each ethnic group is a way of its adaptation to its geographical and ethnic environment.
L.N. Gumilyov considered ethnic groups to be biological phenomena and classified them according to the stereotype of behavior, the phases of ethnic development. In his opinion, ethnos arises from the obligatory mixing of several ethnic substrates and (or) in the presence of an additional factor - a passionary push, which is a micromutation that causes the appearance of a passionary trait in the population and leads to the emergence of new ethnic systems in the regions affected by it.
Skeptics criticize L.N. Gumilyov for not explaining the nature of the push. Thus, the idea of a passionary impulse is presented by them as an intervention from outside (cosmic, divine).
In this case, the approach is applied: "Inexplicable, then impossible." At the same time, the doctrine of L.N. Gumilyov meets the objective laws of the development of the world. It was created on the basis of the science of rhythms and is confirmed in a number of studies.
Passionary push passes on the surface of the planet in the form of bands 200-400 km wide and approximately 0.5 times the circumference of the Earth. Its sign is the mass appearance in some territory of overactive people who begin to break existing traditions and create a new ethnic group. Having arisen, an ethnos goes through a number of regular phases of development, i.e. having a time frame, stages of the process of ethnogenesis (development of an ethnos), which are determined by the direction, speed and limits of change in a given ethnos of "passionate tension", i.e. the degree of influence, the possibility and ability of passionaries (individuals of an energy-abundant type) to implement their behavioral attitudes. The life span of an ethnos, as a rule, is the same and ranges from the moment of a push to complete disintegration of about 1500 years, except for cases when the normal course of its development is artificially interrupted - as a result of aggression, another action or event. The phases into which the process of the life of an ethnos is divided characterize the various stages of its existence, its "age".
Firstphase- the phase of the passionate rise of the ethnos. It has been going on for about 300 years. The main stereotype of the behavior of this phase: "Be who you should be."
Secondphase- Akmatic phase, which lasts about 300 years. In it, the passionary tension in the ethnos reaches its highest level. It is characterized by the dominance of passionaries of the sacrificial type, the highest number of sub-ethnoi. The main stereotype of behavior: "Be yourself."
Thirdphase- the breaking phase, which lasts about 200 years. This is the phase of a sharp decrease in the level of passionary tension. It is characterized by an increase in the number of subpassionaries (individuals of an energy-deficient type), sharp conflicts within the ethnic group. Stereotype of behavior: "We are tired of the greats, let us live."
Fourthphase- inertial, which lasts about 300 years. This is the time of "golden autumn". Stereotype of behavior: "Be like me."
Fifthphase- obscuration phase. It has been going on for about 200 years. Passionary voltage decreases to a level below zero. Stereotype of behavior: "Be like us."
sixthphase- memorial, marking the completion of the process of evolution of the ethnic group. Stereotype of behavior: "Be pleased with yourself."
Thus, each phase of the evolution of an ethnic group is characterized by:
1) a change in the level of activity of the ethnic group (migration, socio-economic, political, nature-forming, etc.);
2) the dominant type of passionaries of a certain level and the number and role of subpassionaries in a given phase;
3) a common social imperative of behavior for a given phase;
4) the degree of internal complexity of the ethnos, i.e. the number and directions of change of its constituent sub-ethnic groups;
6) special distinctive features inherent only to it.
As applied to geopolitics, Gumilyov brought to its logical conclusion Savitsky's idea that the Russians are not just a branch of the Eastern Slavs, but a special ethnic group that has developed on the basis of the Turkic-Slavic fusion. In his concept, the Tatar-Mongols act not as enslavers, but as guardians of the Russian state from the Catholic aggression of Europe.
The postulation of the polarity Russia - the West (in the person of its leader - the United States) is based on the belief in the future of the recreated Eurasian empire, which has great historical opportunities. Inevitably, the center of gravity must shift to younger ethnic groups. Western civilization is in the last stage of ethnogenesis, it is a conglomerate of "chimerical" ethnic groups. The Great Russians, according to Gumilyov, are a relatively “young” ethnic group that has rallied around itself the super-ethnos of the Eurasian empire.
IN modern world there are more than two thousand ethnic communities. Their number continues to change. Some ethnic groups arise, others break up and disappear. The evolution of ethnic groups, their emergence and decay are among the most profound processes that determine the progress of mankind and, perhaps, the very fact of its existence.
The main idea of Eurasianism - the idea of the existence of an integral Eurasian nation, developing on the basis of the unifying ideas of Orthodoxy, was a myth. This idea of national exceptionalism was an artificial construct. Moreover, feature modern development Russia was the desire of significant segments of the population to enter the family of the European peoples of the West. European identity is seen as a condition for democratic values and comprehensive modernization of Russia.
The so-called classical Eurasianism is a bright page in the intellectual, ideological and political-psychological history of the Russian post-revolutionary emigration of the 1920s and 1930s. From the moment of its active declaration of itself, Eurasianism was distinguished by isolationism, the recognition of the fact of revolution in Russia (in the sense that nothing pre-revolutionary is already possible), the desire to stand outside the “right” and “left” (the idea of a “third, new maximalism” as opposed to the idea of a third International), etc. As an integral worldview and political practice, Eurasianism not only constantly evolved internally, updated the list of participants, but often became the object of criticism, energetic and very emotional polemics, and categorical rejection in the emigrant environment. And today the perception of Eurasian ideas in Russia is ambiguous.
At the origins of Eurasianism was a group of young Russian scientists, emigrants from Russia, who met in 1920 in Sofia. These founders were: Prince N.S. Trubetskoy (1890-1938) - outstanding linguist, who substantiated structural linguistics, future professor of Slavic philology at the University of Vienna, son of the philosopher Prince S.N. Trubetskoy (1890-1938), P.N. Savitsky (1895-1968) - economist and geographer, former graduate student P.B. Struve (1870-1944), G.V. Florovsky (1893-1979), later a priest and an outstanding Orthodox theologian and P.P. Suvchinsky (1892-1985) - critic and philosopher of music, publicist and organizer of the Eurasian movement. The inspirer of friends for the publication of the first collective collection, the eldest of them was His Serene Highness Prince A.A. Lieven, but he himself did not write anything and soon took the priesthood. Eurasianism in the philosophical, historical and political thought of the Russian diaspora in the 1920s-1930s: annotations. bibliography decree. /Ros. state library, research and development department of bibliography; comp.: L.G. Filonova, bibliographer. ed. N.Yu. Butina. - M., 2011., S. 11
The work in which Eurasianism first declared its existence was the book by N.S. Trubetskoy “Europe and Humanity”, published in Sofia in 1920. In 1921, their first collection of articles “Exodus to the East. Premonitions and Accomplishments. Approval of the Eurasians”, which became a kind of manifesto of the new movement. During 1921-1922. Eurasians, having dispersed to various cities of Europe, actively worked on the ideological and organizational design of the new movement.
Dozens, if not hundreds of people of the different levels: philosophers N.N. Alekseev, N.S. Arseniev, L.P. Karsavin, V.E. Seseman, S.L. Frank, V.N. Ilyin, historians G.V. Vernadsky and P.M. Bitsilli, literary critics D.P. Svyatopolk-Mirsky, such representatives of Russian culture as I.F. Stravinsky, M.I. Tsvetaeva, A.M. Remizov, R.O. Yakobson, V.N. Ivanov et al. Eurasianism in the philosophical, historical and political thought of the Russian diaspora in the 1920s-1930s: annotations. bibliography decree. /Ros. state library, research and development department of bibliography; comp.: L.G. Filonova, bibliographer. ed. N.Yu. Butina. - M., 2011., S. 12
In the almost twenty-year history of the movement, researchers distinguish three stages. Primary covers 1921-1925. and flows predominantly in Eastern Europe and Germany. Already at this stage, conspiracy moments are intensified, ciphers appear in correspondence. At the next stage, from about 1926 to 1929, the center of the movement moves to Clamart, a suburb of Paris. It was at this stage, at the end of 1928, that the Clamart split of the movement took place. Finally, in the period 1930-1939. movement, survived whole line crises, gradually exhausted the entire stock of its pretentious activism and came to naught.
In their fundamental works, collective manifestos, articles and brochures, the Eurasians tried to creatively respond to the challenge of the Russian revolution and put forward a number of historiosophical, cultural and political ideas for further implementation in the course of active social and practical work. One of the leading modern researchers of Eurasianism, S. Glebov, notes: “Despite various professional and general cultural interests, these people were united by a certain generational ethos and experience of the last “normal” years of the Russian Empire, the First World War, two revolutions and the Civil War. They shared general feeling the crisis - more precisely, the impending catastrophe - of contemporary European civilization; they believed that the path to salvation lies in drawing boundaries between different cultures, as Trubetskoy put it, erecting “partitions reaching to the sky” Glebov S. Eurasianism between empire and modernity. History in documents. M.: New publishing house, 2010. - 632 p. S. 6.
They had a deep contempt for liberal values and procedural democracy and believed in the imminent advent of a new, yet unseen order.
According to the Eurasianists, a new era is beginning, in which Asia is trying to seize the initiative and play a dominant role, and Russia, whose catastrophe is not as severe as the decay of the West, will restore its strength through unity with the East. The Eurasianists called the Russian catastrophe of 1917 a "communist coven" and recognized it as a gloomy result of the forced Europeanization of Russia that had been carried out since Peter I. While condemning the revolution, they, however, believed that it was possible to use its results to ideologically and politically consolidate the anti-Western choice of the ruling communist clique , suggesting that she replace the Marxist doctrine with the Eurasian one. As the Eurasianists declared, a new stage of the country's historical development should begin, oriented towards Eurasia, and not towards communism and not towards Romano-Germanic Europe, which egocentrically robbed the rest of humanity in the name of a universal human civilization invented by its ideologists with the ideas of "stages of development", "progress "and so on.
In his work “Europe and Humanity”, N. S. Trubetskoy writes that, according to the ideas of Western civilization, all mankind, all peoples are divided into historical and non-historical, progressive (Romano-Germanic) and “wild” (non-European). By and large, the idea of a progressive (linear) path of human development, in which some peoples (countries) have gone far “ahead”, while others are trying to catch up with them, has not fundamentally changed over the past hundred years since that time, the only difference is that the previous incarnation of progress in the image of Romano-Germanic Europe has now been replaced by American (Anglo-Saxon) centrism and hegemonism, only liberal-democratic (Western) values have the right to be considered as universal, and the rest of the non-Western world (which, nevertheless, is ѕ of mankind) is regarded as an object of inevitable and even forced modernization according to the Western model. Trubetskoy Eurasianism philosophy value
Even anti-globalists who are fighting against American hegemonism do not get out of the given parameters of the dichotomous perception of the modern world: West - Non-West (civilizational aspect), North - South (economic), Modernism - Traditionalism (socio-political) and the like. Such simplification significantly impoverishes the picture of the modern world. As G. Sachko writes, “just as an atheist perceives all religions as a false (or mythological) consciousness and is not interested in the “degree of falsity” of each of them, so the pro-Western mentality does not differentiate the striking differences between non-Western societies, non-democratic systems, illiberal ideologies” Sachko G.V. Eurasianism and fascism: history and modernity // Bulletin of Chelyabinsky state university. - 2009. - № 40..
According to this approach, everything that is unique in the national, ethnic, confessional aspects is considered as the antipode of the "universal", the traditional is considered as the antipode of the progressive, originality - as isolationism in the global movement, etc.
Eurasianism in its classical form is designed to eliminate this contradiction and confrontation. According to the concept of Eurasianism, the development of mankind as a whole is possible only if all its constituent regions, ethnic groups, peoples, religions and cultures develop in their originality and unique originality. Eurasians stand for diversity and against unified averageness. “The blooming complexity of the world” is K. Leontiev’s favorite image, which was perceived by the Eurasians: each people and nation has its own “color”, its own stage of “flourishing”, its own vector of movement, and only this variety of colors, shades and transitions can become the basis common harmony of mankind. Eurasians consider all cultures, religions, ethnic groups and peoples as equal and equal. N.S. Trubetskoy argued that it is impossible to determine which of the cultures is more developed and which is less, he categorically disagrees with the dominant approach to history, in which "Europeans simply took themselves, their culture as the crown of the evolution of mankind and, naively convinced that that they had found one end of the supposed evolutionary chain, quickly built the entire chain." He compared the creation of such a chain of evolution with an attempt by a person who has never seen the spectrum of a rainbow to put it together from multi-colored cubes.
Based on the concept of Eurasianism, which refutes the unilinear and Eurocentric civilizational development, the democratic regime has no advantages over the Caliphate, European law cannot dominate over the Muslim, and the rights of the individual cannot be higher than the rights of the people, etc.
Actually, there was nothing original in such a view of the development of human society. Civilization approach was proposed even before the Eurasianists by the Russian philosopher Danilevsky, Western thinkers A. Toynbee and O. Spengler, by the way, who proclaimed the imminent "decline" of Europe, or rather, European civilization with its liberal values. Perhaps the most significant difference between the concept of Eurasianism and other plural-cyclical concepts of social development is a sharply negative attitude towards the Western European (Romano-Germanic) world, characteristic of many of its representatives, which is especially clearly seen in the work of N.S. Trubetskoy "Europe and Humanity".
The Eurasianist movement was born in Sofia in 1921, when four young Russian emigrants- economist P.N.Savitsky, art historian P.P. Suvchinsky, philosopher G.D. Florovsky, who took the priesthood, linguist and ethnographer N.S. Trubetskoy - published a collection of articles "Exodus to the East", which became a kind of manifesto of the movement, claiming to fundamentally A New Look on Russian and world history.
In 1922, the second book “On the Roads” was published. Approval of the Eurasianists”, followed by three annual publications under the general title “Eurasian Timepiece”. In 1926, the Eurasianists published a systematic presentation of their concept of "Eurasianism", the main provisions of which, in a concise and declarative form were published in 1927 in the book “Eurasianism. Formulation 1927" In 1931, the collection The Thirties was published in Paris, which summed up the results of the ten-year activity of the movement. It should also be noted that from 1925 to 1937, 12 issues of the Eurasian Chronicle saw the light of day.
These works drew attention to themselves with an unconventional analysis of problems traditional for Russia. Unlike the Slavophiles, Danilevsky, Leontiev and others, who pinned their hopes on an autocratic state, the Eurasianists proceeded from the recognition of the fact that the old Russia had collapsed and become the property of history. In their opinion, the First World War and the Russian Revolution opened qualitatively new era in the history of the country, characterized not only by the collapse of Russia, but also by a comprehensive crisis of the West, which has completely exhausted its potential, which became the beginning of its decay. There is no past in the face of Russia, no present in the face of the West, and Russia's task is to lead humanity to the shining peaks of a bright future.
With its eschatological approach, Eurasianism methodologically differed little from the leading ideological and political currents of that time - fascism and Bolshevism. It is no coincidence that the views of the Eurasianists in a number of aspects were close to the positions of National Bolshevism, which gained some popularity at that time, synthesizing in itself some of the most important postulates of both fascism and Bolshevism.
It is no coincidence that the majority of Eurasians positively accepted the actions of the Bolsheviks to preserve and strengthen the territorial unity of Russia. According to their firm conviction, the Russian revolution is a symbol not only of the end of the old, but also of the birth new Russia. So, N.S. Trubetskoy in 1922 assumed that the Soviet government and the Communist International would succeed in launching a European revolution, which would be only a variant of Russian expansion, and saw the inevitable consequence of such expansion as the cultivation and support of the “welfare of exemplary” communist states of Europe “with the sweat and blood of the Russian worker and peasant” . Moreover, the success of the Soviet leadership in this matter was assessed as a victory for the Eurasian idea, believing that the communists were consistently implementing Russia's age-old imperial aspirations. One of the leaders of the Eurasianists, L. Karsavin, insistently emphasized: "Communists ... are unconscious tools and active bearers of the cunning Spirit of History ... and what they do is necessary and important."
The Eurasianists assigned a special place to the spiritual, primarily religious aspects. In their constructions, one can clearly see the desire to link Russian nationalism with space. As Savitsky emphasized in Geographical Review of Russia–Eurasia, “the socio-political environment and its territory must merge for us into a single whole, into a geographical individual or landscape.” Therefore, it is not surprising that for them the very concept of "Eurasia" was intended to mean not just a continent or part of it in a purely geographical sense, but a kind of civilizational and cultural integrity built on the basis of a synthesis of spatial and sociocultural principles. According to this construction, Russia was considered within the framework of coordinates conventionally designated as East and West.
The essence of the Eurasian idea boiled down to the fact that Russia, occupying the middle space of Asia and Europe, lying at the junction of two worlds - Eastern and Western, represents a special socio-cultural world that unites both principles. Justifying their "middle" position, the Eurasians wrote: "The culture of Russia is neither a European culture, nor one of the Asian ones, nor the sum or mechanical combination of the elements of both ... It must be contrasted with the cultures of Europe and Asia as a median Eurasian culture." Therefore, Savitsky argued in his article "The Geographical and Geopolitical Foundations of Eurasianism" (1933), "Russia has much more reason than China to be called the "Middle State". This, in his opinion, is an independent, self-sufficient and special spiritual and historical geopolitical reality, which owns its own original culture, "equally different from European and Asian ones."
Unlike those Slavophiles who affirmed the ideas and values of pan-Slavism, the Eurasianists, following Leontiev, emphasized the Asian, especially the Turanian component of this world, considering Russia the successor to the empire of Genghis Khan. As Trubetskoy wrote, for example, “the national substratum of that state, which was formerly called the Russian Empire, and now called the USSR, can only be the totality of the peoples inhabiting this state, considered as a special multinational nation and as such having its own nationalism.”
This position was even more clearly formulated by Savitsky, according to whom the substratum of the Eurasian cultural and civilizational integrity is Aryan-Slavic culture, Turkic nomadism, Orthodox tradition: it was thanks to the Tatar-Mongol yoke that “Russia gained its geopolitical independence and retained its spiritual independence from the aggressive Romano-Germanic peace." Moreover, "without the Tatars there would be no Russia," he argued in the article "Steppe and Settlement." And one of the later Eurasianists, L. Gumilyov, whom V. Stupishin, not without reason, called a brilliant confusion of science, identified Ancient Rus' with the Golden Horde, and Soviet statehood - with the Slavic-Turkic superethnos invented by him.
Without discarding a number of interesting observations expressed by the Eurasians, at the same time it should be noted that their projects contained many erroneous provisions, which in modern conditions look like anachronisms. There were separate elements in the Eurasian ideology, the implementation of which would have been fraught with voluntary isolation for Russia. So, in one of the manifestos of Eurasianism it was said: “Russian culture must be opposed to the cultures of Europe and Asia as a median, Eurasian culture, we must recognize ourselves as Eurasians in order to recognize ourselves as Russians. Having thrown off the Tatar yoke, we must also throw off the European yoke.
It is also impossible to accept the conviction of the Eurasians in the exclusivity and special mission of Russia in the modern world. Thus, presenting Russia-Eurasia as a special cultural world headed by Russia, the authors of the manifesto emphasized that it, i.e. Russia-Eurasia "claims that and believes that in our era it has a leading and leading role in a number of human cultures." Such a belief, the manifesto went on to say, can only be justified religiously, i.e. on the foundation of Orthodoxy: the exclusivity of Russian culture, its special mission are derived from Orthodoxy, which is “the highest confession of Christianity, unique in its fullness and purity. Outside of it, everything is either paganism, or heresy, or schism.” Although the value of other Christian denominations was not completely denied, a condition was put forward: "while existing as Russian-Greek and predominantly Greek, Orthodoxy wants the whole world to become Orthodox out of itself." Otherwise, adherents of other faiths were predicted to decay and die.
It should be noted that, for the most part, the Russian émigré intelligentsia accepted the Eurasian ideas rather coolly, if not negatively. Among the most active critics of Eurasianism were N.A. Berdyaev, I.A. Ilyin, P.N. Milyukov, F.A. Stepun, G.P. Fedotov. It seems quite natural that in 1928 the earlier split within the movement ended with a complete division into the Parisian and Prague groups. Moreover, by the beginning of the 1930s, the most resolute supporters of Eurasianism and even its founders N. Trubetskoy, G. Florovsky, G. Bitsilli and others departed from Eurasianism. bitterly stated that "the fate of Eurasianism is a history of spiritual failure." According to him, the Eurasianists “answered the questions posed by life with a ghostly lace of seductive dreams. Dreams are always seductive and dangerous when they are given out and mistaken for reality. In Eurasian dreams, small truth is combined with great self-deception... Eurasianism failed. Instead of a path, there is a dead end. It doesn't lead anywhere."
A notable evidence of the split of the Eurasian movement was the publication in Paris of the weekly newspaper "Eurasia" (published from November 1928 to September 1929), focused on ideological and political rapprochement with the Soviet regime. Active participation in the publication of the newspaper was taken by L.P. Karsavin, Prince. D.P. Svyatopolk-Mirsky, P.P. Suvchinsky, S. Ya. Efron. The irony of history is that flirting with the Bolsheviks by no means freed the Eurasians from persecution by the Soviet authorities. So, Karsavin, Savitsky and others were convicted after the war and spent many years in the Gulag.
1The article discusses the specifics of the concept of Russian history in the teachings of the Eurasians. It consists in a detailed study of the relationship between the Turkic peoples and the Slavic tribes. It is noted that the Slavs are closer to the Turkic peoples than to the European ones, since they exist in a common place of development. Eurasians consider the Tatar-Mongol yoke as a boon for Rus', in contrast to traditional historiography. The Europeanization of Russia by Peter I is assessed mostly negatively, as an event that gave rise to a split between the "tops" and "bottoms" Russian state. The revolution is understood as an inevitable, long overdue and non-random event. Despite all the negative manifestations of the revolutionary process, the Eurasianists also see the positive results of this event: moving away from Europe, returning to the eastern patterns of state building, the return of the true Orthodox feeling among believers.
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1. Klyuchnikov S. Russian knot of Eurasianism. East in Russian thought. Collection of works of Eurasians. M .: - From: "Belovodie", 1997.
2. Prokhorova G.A., Slominskaya E.V. The problem of the process of modernization of Russia through the prism of the features of its historical development // Modern problems of science and education. 2015. No. 1; URL: www..
3. Slominskaya E.V. Russian scientific and technical intelligentsia of the XVIII - early XX centuries in national historiography(1917 - the first decade of the XXI century): dis ... .. cand. ist. Sciences: 07.00.02. - Tula, 2012.
4. Savitsky P.N. Eurasia continent. - M.: Agraf, 1997.
5. Trubetskoy N.S. The legacy of Genghis Khan // Europe and humanity. - M.: Eksmo, 2007.
6. Trubetskoy N.S. Tops and bottoms of Russian culture: the ethnic basis of Russian culture // Exodus to the East. Sofia, 1921.
7. Trubetskoy N.S. " tower of babel and confusion of languages”// Eurasian Timepiece. Berlin, 1923.
Speaking about the reasons for the emergence of Eurasianism, many of his opponents (in particular, N.A. Berdyaev) argued that, although not original in its ideology, it arose exclusively spontaneously, under the influence of a catastrophic post-revolutionary situation. This is only partly true. Indeed, many people, including future Eurasians, were forced to think seriously about the fate of their homeland precisely World War and revolution. But the conceptual basis of Eurasianism began to take shape in the minds of its two main leaders - P.N. Savitsky and N.S. Trubetskoy even before these events. A national turning point in the minds of the Russian intelligentsia has been brewing for a long time.
Eurasianism did not arise from scratch, it developed in line with an original and vibrant tradition. The Eurasianists considered the tradition of social and philosophical thought in Russia to be their predecessors, for which “... one should consider the rejection of European culture as a universal one as characteristic,” writes K.I. Florovskaya, - in particular - the assertion of its unsuitability for transplantation on Russian soil; revealing the identity of Russian culture and its independence from European culture, in view of the fact that Russian culture has its origins in Byzantine Orthodoxy and tribal autocracy. Slavophiles F.M. Dostoevsky, K.N. Leontieva, N.Ya. Danilevsky and, in special turns, D.I. Mendeleev, V.O. Klyuchevsky and many others. “If anyone can and should be considered the ideological predecessors of the Eurasians, then these are precisely these people, who in one way or another in their statements coincided with certain statements of the Eurasians,” concludes K.I. Florovskaya.
It should be noted, however, that the Eurasians have always separated themselves from the Slavophiles, saying that the Slavophile ideas (but by no means its very spirit) are somewhat outdated. Many Slavophile statements of the mid-nineteenth century. the Eurasians resolutely reconsidered.
predecessor geographical concept P.N. Savitsky was a geographer and public figure V.I. Lamansky (1833-1914), the foundations of Russia's geopolitics can also be found in the works of D.I. Mendeleev. Thus, Eurasianism, despite certain differences, continued, in general, the already established and sufficiently developed tradition of Slavophile and soil (post-Slavophile) thought (K.N. Leontiev, N.Ya. Danilevsky). The historical concept of Eurasianism, in which a significant place was given to the history of the nomadic peoples of Eurasia, the Mongol-Tatar yoke and its assessment, had a predecessor in the person of the conservative thinker of the first half of the 19th century M.L. Magnitsky (1778-1855), who, in a polemic with N.M. Karamzin spoke about the positive aspects of the latter phenomenon.
V.F. Ern (1882-1917), religious philosopher and essayist. N.A. also pointed to this. Berdyaev, calling Ern "a typical Eurasian in mood." But for Berdyaev, this analogy, apparently, was explained solely by the similarity of the emotional mood of both. However, modern researchers also point to Ern's ideological anticipation of Eurasianism. We are talking about a series of his lectures "Time is Slavophilizing ...", relating to 1914, and caused by a national upsurge experienced by part of Russian society in connection with the beginning great war. This expression became winged and was used, among other things, in the Eurasian environment, where it was redone in a different way: "Time is Eurasian." Ern's main thesis was that time itself, that is, the totality of new living conditions, not abstract reasoning, but a new historical reality, prompts Slavophilism to a revival, and it must again gain strength. “By my position,” he wrote, “I want to say that whatever the mass consciousness of educated Russian people may be, we are actually entering the Slavophil eon [eon is a term of Gnostic philosophy; here is a period] of our history.” He correctly noted the existing trend. Indeed, the old ideological attitudes of the intelligentsia towards unconditional Eurocentrism, which were based on the deification of European civilization, completely lost their humanistic pathos with the outbreak of the World War. History unconditionally refuted such an ideology, and it is natural that Slavophile views, which had previously been in the background, were awakened to a new life. The ground for the development of Eurasianism was prepared, and it marked a new and qualitatively different from the previous stages in the formation of the national idea.
The emergence of Eurasianism was natural and conditioned by the entire logic of the development of original domestic thought. The revolution and Civil War, which ended with the defeat of the White movement, to the participants of which, one way or another, the Eurasians belonged, became only an excuse for the development of Eurasianism.
Eurasianism, having absorbed the most constructive elements of the previous concepts of the Russian national ideology, and formed in a completely new post-revolutionary situation, which made increased demands on the bearers of Russian self-consciousness, became its pinnacle, embodying the most complete and at the same time modern national doctrine of Russia.
Classical Eurasianism was the ideological successor of Slavophilism. P.N. Savitsky noted that: "Eurasianism, of course, lies in a common sphere with the Slavophiles ... the problem of the relationship between both currents cannot be reduced to a simple succession." The uniqueness of Eurasianism, according to the author, lies in the fact that it was an original synthesis of three teachings:
Byzantism of the late Slavophiles, i.e. recognition of Byzantine tradition as a fundamental element of Russian culture and Orthodox Church, connected with the rejection of the European civilization of the New Age;
Orientalism "turn to the East (Asia)", i.e. recognition of the positive role Tatar- Mongolian yoke and the unity of the historical fate and culture of the Russian and Turanian (Eastern) peoples;
An original political and economic doctrine, close to Marxism in its political conclusions.
The synthesis of these three teachings was based on the analysis of the culture and history of Russia, on the one hand, and on the other hand, on one of the world's first theories of geopolitics, i.e. the correlation of political and national forms of the organic existence of the life of peoples with geographical space, or the civilizational approach.
According to P.N. Savitsky, “Russia-Eurasia is the center of the Old World. "... Russia is neither Asia nor Europe, but represents a special geographical world".
Starting from the rejection of the Romano-Germanic civilization, it set the task of creating an original Russian civilization (Russia-Eurasia), affirming itself on the basis of Orthodoxy. P.N. Savitsky in his article “Eurasianism” wrote: “Eurasians ... stand on the basis of tradition. ... They perceive Russia-Eurasia as a unity ... The point is to find within its limits the proper forms of cohabitation of nations. Eurasians understand Russia as a "cathedral of peoples...".
But besides this, in order to assert their position, the Eurasians had to refute the common ideas of Eurocentric ideologies about Asia as a dark and wild mass of uncultured peoples, thus undermining the idea of the exclusivity of the Western Enlightenment. This idea was brilliantly developed by N.S. Trubetskoy in the article "A look at Russian history not from the West, but from the East".
The Eurasianists also set themselves the task of comprehending the Russian Revolution of 1917. and Marxist ideology in general, with its pluses and minuses. The comprehension of the revolution was necessary in order to justify the Russian people and Russian culture in the eyes of the white emigration, who lost faith in the old Slavophil ideal of the “God-bearing people”.
The foundations of Eurasianism can be summarized as follows. Russia is a special geographical world, different from both Europe and Asia. This, according to the Eurasianists, is undeniably evidenced by her geographical features: the presence of clearly defined natural areas, located like the horizontal stripes of the flag, in contrast to Europe and Asia, where their arrangement is “mosaic-fractional”. Ural mountain range only conditionally divides this horizontally located system, since there is no fundamental change in it outside its borders. Therefore, the assertion that Europe continues to the Urals, where Asia begins, has no scientific basis. On the contrary, geography, as well as soil science, undeniably testify to the existence of a special geographical world, approximately coinciding with the territory of the Russian Empire. This world was proposed to be considered Eurasia.
All peoples of the world live in interaction with the geographical environment; affect it, but also experience it themselves. Therefore, understanding the history of a people is unthinkable without understanding the concept of place of development - the totality of natural conditions (features of landscape, soil, vegetation, climate, etc.) in which the history of a given people unfolds. The influence of the place of development determines a number of features of the psychology, culture, "mentality" of the ethnic group. Wherein different nations, not related by a common origin, but coexisting for a long time within the same local development, can become closer to each other than peoples that are initially related, but developing in different local developments. Therefore, despite the obvious differences between them, the Russian people may be closer to other peoples of Russia: Turkic, Finno-Ugric, etc., than to the Slavs, tied to the European place of development.
There is a special Turanian ethnopsychological type inherent in the nomadic peoples of Asia. In particular, it is characterized by: the priority of the spiritual over the material, the desire for clearly defined and not allowing "confusion and vacillation" boundaries of the worldview, stable values and forms of self-consciousness. These features are equally inherent in the Russian people, which allows us to speak about the commonality of a number of features of the ethnic psychology of Russians and Turanians, as well as about the Turanian element in Russian culture (N.S. Trubetskoy).
In addition to the genetic relationship of languages, there is also a relationship of a different order, due not to a common origin, but to the long neighborhood and interaction of languages. As a result of such interaction, language unions are formed. A number of similarities in the Russian languages, on the one hand, and Finno-Ugric, Turkic, and other languages of the peoples of Eurasia, on the other, indicate the existence of a special Eurasian language union (N.S. Trubetskoy, R.O. Yakobson).
Kievan Rus, considered by the Eurasians, was unviable public education, since the Russian princes had no idea of a single statehood, without which the independence of Rus' was impossible, and they did not set themselves any broad historical tasks. Located on the western outskirts of Eurasia, Kievan Rus was limited by a narrow territory, it was stretched in the meridional direction. But the power over the whole of Eurasia would inevitably have been concentrated in the hands of the people who would act in the direction of the parallels, since the rectangle of the steppes, stretching over vast distances from the Carpathians to the Khingan, ensured unconditional domination over the entire continent. Those peoples who occupied the steppes were the undivided rulers of all of Eurasia. Naturally, these were nomadic peoples - first the Scythians, then the Huns. With the disappearance of the latter, the question of dominance over the steppe, and, consequently, over the whole of Eurasia, remained open. The task was to unite Eurasia with a powerful colonization movement along the East-West line. The Russians could not and did not want to fulfill this task. At the same time, the Mongols, who were experiencing a period of passionarity (L.N. Gumilyov's term), were capable of this. And they united the continent under their rule. The vast expanses of Eurasia had to be filled. This necessary role was assumed by the Mongols.
For Russia, the Eurasians believed, the Mongol yoke was not an evil, but a boon. Russian scribes understood the invasion of the Mongols not as an unreasonable disaster, but as God's punishment for the sins of internecine wars. This circumstance is not given due attention. "The Lord loves him, punishes him" (Heb., XII, 6). Punishment is sent by God not for the sake of punishment as such, but for correction. And this is precisely the role of the punishment of Rus' by the Mongol yoke. It served to correct Rus' and fulfilled its purpose. In the crucible of the Mongol yoke, the national feeling of the Eastern Slavs developed and strengthened, which later turned them into the Russian nation.
The Russians adopted from the Mongols those necessary elements of a unified state that we did not have - a message system (postal stations) and a financial system. This is evidenced by the words of Turkic origin: yam (post station; hence - yam chase, coachman, etc.), money, altyn, etc. If in Russia there were denotations of these concepts - communication systems and finances - then there would be no point in renaming them. These words entered the Russian language along with the realities they designate, borrowed from the Mongols. There was no system in Rus' government controlled in general, there was no developed class of officials capable of managing a large-scale state formation. The Mongols had it all. And without these systems, according to the Eurasians, Rus' would forever remain in a state feudal fragmentation.
Thus, the foundations of the statehood of Moscow Rus, in addition to the Byzantine origins, also have Mongolian ones. Only state ideology came from Byzantium to Rus' along with faith, but the practice of state building, the foundations of the Russian state apparatus were modeled on Mongolian realities.
After the collapse of the Mongol Empire into a number of uluses, Eurasia was again divided. But a single natural world cannot but gravitate toward political unity. I needed new power capable of uniting Eurasia. Now Russia, enriched by the experience of Mongolian state building, has become this force. The colonization movement of the Russians to the east began, which led to the formation of the Muscovite kingdom, which came to Pacific Ocean. Eurasia was again united by a new historical force - the Russian people.
These processes fit into the periodic scheme of G.V. Vernadsky, according to which a single statehood in the expanses of Eurasia is periodically replaced by fragmentation and vice versa. The disintegration of the united state in 1991 also fits into this scheme, but from it it is also clear that with the inevitability of historical regularity, this unity will be restored.
Peter I turned the Moscow kingdom into Russian empire. The Eurasianists did not deny the positive aspects of the statehood of the imperial period, but at the same time believed that the Europeanization of Russia was carried out thoughtlessly. This is one of the reasons for the revolution of 1917. The ruling stratum of Russia abandoned national cultural traditions and began to mindlessly copy the culture (and lack of culture) of Europeans, while the broad masses of the people continued to live by the national culture. Therefore, a gap formed between the people and the ruling stratum. This split of the nation was one of the reasons for the collapse of the Empire.
In the civil struggle that unfolded after the revolution, the white armies were doomed to failure. No matter how high the heroism of white officers and soldiers, victory over Bolshevism could only be achieved by opposing it with an ideology commensurate in strength. Such an ideology did not exist and could not exist either among the leaders and leaders of the White movement, or among any of those that existed in Russia. political parties. But such an ideology was created by the Eurasians.
They recognized as an indisputable fact that the revolution radically changed both Russia and the world, and that a return to the past, to the Russia of the imperial (Petersburg) period is impossible, and not necessary, because the causes of the revolution were rooted in it. At the same time, the revolution created a lot of new things. The emigrants were generally inclined to deny everything created by the revolution. The Eurasianists, on the other hand, recognized that as a result of it, not so much thanks to, but in spite of, the communists, a lot of viable, good and suitable for construction was created. nation state in future.
These positive consequences of the revolution were the following: the communists, who tried to impose the newest European ideology on Russia, its most radical Europeanizers, actually achieved the opposite; Russia was opposed to Europe, excluded from its sphere of influence. The Communists waged a campaign against Orthodoxy with the aim of destroying it, thereby achieving the apostasy of the vacillators, but also an unprecedented spiritual upsurge in thousands of Russian people, an unprecedented tension in the sharpness of religious feeling. Thus, along with the external humiliation of the Church, its internal, spiritual affirmation and exaltation took place.
Under the leadership of the communists, a viable planned economy system was created, a strong industry (at the same time, the Eurasianists pointed to the barbaric methods of collectivization, condemned them, and said that this would not end well). Moreover, the council system is a truly democratic institution.
However, all these positive aspects are balanced, if not outweighed by negative ones: communism is, of course, a false ideology, the communist dictatorship suppresses the nominally existing possibilities of democracy, the fight against faith is criminal, the scale of the destruction and sale of Russian cultural values is monstrous, the unprofessionalism of Soviet leaders of economic policy is threatened to be reduced to zero its achievement, etc. All this was perfectly seen by the Eurasians. Thus, the attitude of the Eurasians to the Soviet power was objective.
Thus, in the concept of the history of the Eurasians, one can trace great attention to the meaning of oriental elements, both in public and other aspects.
Reviewers:
Kuznetsova E.I., Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor of the Department of History of State and Law, Tula State University, Tula;
Chemodanova D.I., Doctor of Pedagogical Sciences, Senior Researcher of the Psychological and Pedagogical Laboratory of NIIOT, Moscow.
Bibliographic link
Prokhorova G.A. EURASIAN CONCEPT OF RUSSIAN HISTORY // Modern problems of science and education. - 2015. - No. 2-3.;URL: http://science-education.ru/ru/article/view?id=23528 (date of access: 01.02.2020). We bring to your attention the journals published by the publishing house "Academy of Natural History"
