Russian Eurasianism: An Ideology of Empire (Woodrow Wilson Center Press) [Hardcover]

Marlène Laruelle (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 080189073X | ISBN-13: 978-0801890734 | Publication Date: August 5, 2008

Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russia has been marginalized at the edge of a Western-dominated political and economic system. In recent years, however, leading Russian figures, including former president Vladimir Putin, have begun to stress a geopolitics that puts Russia at the center of a number of axes: European-Asian, Christian-Muslim-Buddhist, Mediterranean-Indian, Slavic-Turkic, and so on.

This volume examines the political presuppositions and expanding intellectual impact of Eurasianism, a movement promoting an ideology of Russian-Asian greatness, which has begun to take hold throughout Russia, Kazakhstan, and Turkey. Eurasianism purports to tell Russians what is unalterably important about them and why it can only be expressed in an empire. Using a wide range of sources, Marlène Laruelle discusses the impact of the ideology of Eurasianism on geopolitics, interior policy, foreign policy, and culturalist philosophy.

Editorial Reviews

Review

A tour de force not merely because of the depth of the scholarship and the skill of the argument but also because Laruelle unveils a subject crucial to understanding today's Russia but never given proper due... Even the most serious student of contemporary Russia will get from this book a vastly deeper sense of what makes Russian intellectual life, for all of its vexed affinity with the West, fundamentally different.

(Robert Legvold Foreign Affairs 2009)

A masterful job of describing the various philosophical threads of Eurasianism... The author's lucid style makes the book accessible to the educated general public.

(Choice 2009)

This volume certainly engages the reader to explore... Laruell's deft treatment of Eurasianism's shifting position in contemporary discourse makes this a fascinating volume that extends beyond the boundaries of any single academic discipline.

(Kathleen Macfie Eurasian Geography and Economics 2009)

Laruelle is to be congratulated on her lucid and intellectually disciplined discussion of the ambiguous, intricate, and often contradictory ideas that shape Russian Neo-Eurasiansim... a must-read for intellectual historians, policymakers, cultural scholars, Russia Watchers, or for that matter, anyone who uneasily senses that something is moving in the deep currents beneath the surface of contemporary Russia, but is not sure of what it is.

(Maria Carlson Russian Review 2009)

Russian Eurasianism is a lucid and rational guide, based on thorough scholarship and an admirable reluctance to sensationalize or to claim too much.

(Edmund Griffiths Times Literary Supplement 2009)

A richly interdisciplinary and meticulously researched analysis of both the historical and contemporary sources of Eurasianist cultural and philosophical/ideological traditions and discourse... this book will be an invaluable resource for policymakers and academics providing a deeper understanding of the forces shaping Russia's identity and the unfolding of circumstances for the entire Eurasian region.

(Sharyl N. Cross Journal of Slavic Military Studies 2010)

Laruelle, an established authority in the field.

(International Affairs 2009)

An impressive achievement. The author writes with an erudition and breadth of insight that is unique in the burgeoning field of what we might call 'Eurasianism studies.'

(Mark Bassin Slavic Review 2011)

Extremely informative and enlightening reading.

(Andreas Umland Europe-Asia Studies )

The importance of this work lies in the remarkable, even extraordinary, research effort that underpins its writing. The work’s best features are the breadth of its coverage and the trenchancy of its analysis.

(John B. Dunlop, Hoover Institution )

This book is an impressive achievement—wide-ranging yet sensitive to context and careful to bring together the many varieties of Eurasianism that have emerged over the 20th century. Laruelle makes us see why and how the idea of empire continues to appeal in post-Soviet space.

(Willard Sunderland, University of Cincinnati )

From the Back Cover

This volume examines the political presuppositions and expanding intellectual impact of Eurasianism, a movement promoting an ideology of Russian-Asian greatness, which has begun to take hold throughout Russia, Kazakhstan, and Turkey. Eurasianism purports to tell Russians what is unalterably important about them and why it can only be expressed in an empire. Using a wide range of sources, Marlène Laruelle discusses the impact of the ideology of Eurasianism on geopolitics, interior policy, foreign policy, and culturalist philosophy.

"A tour de force... Even the most serious student of contemporary Russia will get from this book a vastly deeper sense of what makes Russian intellectual life, for all of its vexed affinity with the West, fundamentally different."— Foreign Affairs

"A masterful job of describing the various philosophical threads of Eurasianism... The author's lucid style makes the book accessible to the educated general public."— Choice

"Laruelle's deft treatment of Eurasianism's shifting position in contemporary discourse makes this a fascinating volume that extends beyond the boundaries of any single academic discipline."— Eurasian Geography and Economics

" Russian Eurasianism is a lucid and rational guide, based on thorough scholarship and an admirable reluctance to sensationalize or to claim too much."— Times Literary Supplement

"A richly interdisciplinary and meticulously researched analysis of both the historical and contemporary sources of Eurasianist cultural and philosophical/ideological traditions and discourse."— Journal of Slavic Military Studies

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 296 pages
• Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press (August 5, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 080189073X
• ISBN-13: 978-0801890734
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #503,060 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent overview of post-Soviet "neo-Eurasianism", February 5, 2011

By 

Andreas Umland "SPPS" (ZIMOS) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Russian Eurasianism: An Ideology of Empire (Woodrow Wilson Center Press) (Hardcover)

The present book is, perhaps, Laruelle's most important contribution among her many recent publications as she combines here deep knowledge of the precursors, representatives and followers of classical Eurasianism with an excellent understanding of post-Soviet politics and thought. The book first discusses the issue of whether Eurasianism is marginal or a mainstream phenomenon. It then deals with the early Eurasianists of the 1920s and 1930s before devoting special chapters to Lev Gumilev, Aleksandr Panarin and Aleksandr Dugin. Two further chapters deal with non-Russian neo-Eurasianism in Russia, Kazakhstan and Turkey. The conclusions interpret the evolution of Eurasianist ideas from hermeneutic and comparative viewpoints. This book will probably acquire the status of seminal reading with Russian nationalism studies. It displays the author's enormous factual knowledge and her firm grip of the peculiarities of current Russian discourse. I found every page of this monograph worth reading, and can recommend it whole-heartedly as a reliable and engaging introduction to the complicated issue of Eurasianist nationalism. Last but not least, it should be mentioned that the book is a translation from French and that it has greatly benefited from having Mischa Gabowitsch as its translator. As this text expresses well, Gabowitsch is not only a native-like speaker of both French and English, but himself a researcher of Russian nationalism with an exceptionally profound understanding of the substance of the Laruelle's argument.
It is only against the back-ground of such expressive enthusiasm that I dare to make one critical remark concerning this and some previous interpretations of the Dugin phenomenon by Laruelle. Aleksandr Dugin is the currently most relevant representative of "neo-Eurasianism" among the various political thinkers and actors introduced by Laruelle here. He seems to have more or less far-reaching ties within both the Russian political elite, including the Presidential Administration, and civil society, not the least academia. In light of the increasing presence of Dugin in Russian public life, Laruelle might have been less determined when, for instance, at one point asserting that his ideas "cannot be equated with fascism if that is understood to designate the contemporary racist exreme right - a designation that is moreover, historically and conceptually incorrect" (p. 132). Here Laruelle enters a decades-long international debate about the nature of generic fascism, and, if one acknowledges the usefulness of that concept, the way it should be defined and interpreted. Laruelle seems neither familiar with that literature nor particularly interested in the, partly, heated debates around the issue of Dugin's fascism of students like Leonid Luks, Alexander Yanov, Stephen D. Shenfield, Alan Ingram, John B. Dunlop, Roger D. Griffin, Walter Laqueur, A. James Gregor, Anton Shekhovtsov or myself. Thus, it would have been preferable if she had either avoided the topic, or presented the relevant comparativists' arguments for and against a classification of Dugin as a fascist. With almost no reference to relevant explorations of generic fascism and without any discussion of its previous applications to Russia, Laruelle's various statements on that topic look empty, and are, at points, self-contradictory.