The Collapse of Eurasianism
Illustration from the book by A. Blok "The Twelve. Scythians". Paris, 1920. Artist M. Larionov
After the revolution and civil war, monarchism, as a system of governance under feudalism, was becoming a thing of the past, and the petty-bourgeois White Guard milieu needed a “new ideology” or “ideologies.” One such example of “ideology” was Eurasianism, as a cultural-political and historical movement. Not the least important factor in the formation of this theory was the resentment towards “civilized Europe”, which did not provide the necessary assistance to the Whites in the fight against the Bolshevik infection, “ungratefully” abandoned those who from 1914 to 1917 shed blood for the “common European cause”, contrary to the interests of Russia. But Eurasianism, like other local ideologies of the White emigration, did not become a support for the dispersing diaspora.
In fact, Eurasianism was not some kind of special ideology, but a theory that assumed that Russia is a special Eurasian, and not European, civilization.
According to some supporters of this theory, Russia's development was more influenced by its eastern neighbors than by Europe. Some Eurasians traced the Russian state itself to the Mongol "empire." And Russia's expansion by lands in the east, in their opinion, only emphasized this. If we call a spade a spade, Russia is not Europe, but a Eurasian or eastern country. This opinion was in tune with the ideas of conservative and fascist European leaders of the time about Soviet Russia: yes, Russia is Soviet-era Asiaticism.
Based on the Eurasian “structure” of Russia, it was assumed that in the event of the fall of the Bolshevik government, the eastern peoples and ethnic groups would not flee to their separatist apartments, because they were united not by the communist ideology of the equality of workers and peoples, but by the Eurasian common origin of the Russians and other peoples and ethnic groups that became part of the empire, and then the USSR.
After some enthusiasm for Eurasianism in the émigré community, including such historians as G. V. Vernadsky, it became the property of historiography. And, it would seem, forever. But it was not to be.
Its revival took place in the last decade of Soviet power.
Serious external threats forced the USSR to industrialize and urbanize at the highest rates. Public consciousness could not keep up with these rates, which became especially noticeable in the early 70s. This gap between the material and the mental caused a crisis of collective consciousness: the influence of the agrarian mentality left its mark.
The first prosperous years without wars and competition in Russian history, as if out of nowhere, gave rise to a search for ideological “alternatives” to the surrounding reality, especially among the “rushing” intelligentsia. A place was found for White Guard Eurasianism.
In fact, it was revived by Lev Nikolaevich Gumilev, a man with a difficult fate. He seemed to want to talk about "Ethnogenesis and the Earth's biosphere", but returned Eurasianism. Of course, he did not claim that Rus' became the successor of the Mongol "empire", but he stubbornly defended the symbiosis of the Steppe and Russian principalities.
With perestroika, Gumilev's word began to sound stronger, whether he wanted it or not, it entered the mainstream. And it would be fine if these ideas were only mastered by exalted ladies admiring the author. But gradually, despite all scientific data, the theory penetrated both political science and politics, and famous writers and home-grown philosophers began to propagate it and take it into service.
In search of Eurasian roots?
And what do we have there in Russian history, how did things stand with Asian roots?
The following fact of early Russian history is important for us. The tribal structures of the Eastern Slavs of the 8th–9th centuries were formed in the process of colonization in the forest-steppe and forest, completely undeveloped part of Eastern Europe, while in Western Europe feudalism had already begun to form in territories partly cultivated by the Romans, with cities and Roman roads. This and only this is connected with the “lag” of the Eastern Slavic and Russian ethnic groups, which entered the path of historical development much later than their Western neighbors.
In all other respects, the Russian ethnic group developed and followed a similar path to other European states.
After the Mongol invasion, external power was established over the "sovereign" lands of Rus'. On the part of the khans, it consisted of the confiscation of surplus product, tribute, and everything that was connected with this (control over Russian princes, periodic raids, etc.).
The conquerors needed to establish a constant flow of income from the conquered lands with as little effort as possible. And the Russian lands also needed to build relationships, protecting them from devastating raids by the steppe dwellers. In this regard, it is completely untenable to talk about some kind of symbiosis between Rus and the Horde; all relationships between the Horde and Rus clearly demonstrate the relationship of conquerors and conquered tributaries. Throughout the Tatar-Mongol yoke, these relationships changed and evolved, but as soon as Rus was able to gather the necessary forces, the struggle for the abolition of tribute in favor of the steppe dwellers began.
The conquerors certainly influenced the socio-economic processes in the fragile agrarian economy, in the conditions of the risky farming zone, Ancient Rus, but did not change the path of its development. The nomadic state stood outside Rus, nearby, but outside, unlike, for example, Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece, included in the Ottoman Empire.
The defeat of the Russian Lands and their fall under external control led to the dying out of the old form of governance of Rus', which could not cope with external challenges: from city-states (Land) to a military-service state. All this, within the framework of the communal-territorial structure both in north-eastern Rus' and in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. At the same time, as a response to the challenge, the early Russian state is formed at the end of the 15th century. Within the framework of which the system of governance of the already class state, the monarchy, is formed.
Rus' is still following the same path of organic development; there is no need to talk about any transition from the “European” to the “Asian” path.
The only alternative to this path could be a complete copying of the structure of a nomadic society, which we do not observe in Rus'. If an agricultural society had become structurally a nomadic society, and each farmer had become a warrior-rider, then we could talk about the "Asian (!) path of development." But the agrarian technological cycle excludes such a situation and requires control over work for almost the entire year, unlike the nomadic way of life, especially in the Eastern European steppe, where the key labor activity was war. It was this constant external threat that stimulated the emergence of feudalism in Rus'.
The great Russian princes, beginning with Ivan III, consider themselves not so much as thrifty masters of their court, volosts, cities and coffers, but rulers of the state, equal only to outstanding foreign monarchs. The "Queen of Constantinople" and Greek emigrants from Italy strengthened the Russian great princes in this. Incidentally, Byzantium from the 6th to the 12th centuries had its main territories in Asia, but this did not make this Christian empire an Asian country or satrapy.
In the 15th century, Muscovite Rus' was the only Orthodox country with such capabilities and powers in Europe. The only fully autocratic (sovereign) state. Therefore, the Eurocentric and Christian formula "Moscow is the third Rome" was and is absolutely logical. Note, not the "third Sarai" or Karakorum, but Rome.
The key factor in the formation of the monarchy as an institution of governance under feudalism was Christianity. Which was fully reflected, as in all of feudal Europe, in the ideology of Rus'. Or governance in the "image and likeness of God." Joseph Volotsky pointed out that the Grand Prince of Moscow was not the first among equals, but the "sovereign of sovereigns." No Russian prince had previously possessed such divine legitimacy.
As soon as Ivan III placed the “children of the boyars” (nobles) on border lands and lands under threat of invasion, the process of formation of feudalism began, legally finally formalized by the Cathedral Code of 1649.
How detailed was this process, based on modern scientific historiography, I described in a number of articles on VO, which I suggest that all those who have questions about these events in our history read.
Thus, at the end of one social system and the transition to another, feudalism, Russia (the authentic term) freed itself from external tributary dependence, and thanks to the feudal army, the first Russian monarch and tsar, the Orthodox Christian sovereign of the Holy Russian Empire, according to Kurbsky, Ivan the Terrible, defeated the nearest Tatar kingdoms. It should be noted that no Christian and highly educated person for his era, Ivan Vasilyevich, would have thought of connecting the history of Holy Rus' with its eastern origin.
It should be noted that, contrary to the stable historiographical tradition, which was especially actively promoted at the beginning of the 21st century, Rus and Russiya developed primarily as a Russian state. Despite the fact that ethnicity was secondary during this period, neighboring ethnic groups, such as the Finno-Ugric, were integrated into its composition by force. Service foreigners were incorporated exclusively through Christianization.
Throughout Russian history up to and including the 17th century, no symbiosis or borrowing of governance systems or institutions from the East is observed. We observe this even less during the period associated with the beginning of "modernization" or the forced total borrowing of technologies from the West. According to A. Toynbee, due to Russia's historical closeness to Europe, unlike Turkey or Iran, this modernization was successful both under Peter the Great and his immediate followers.
The wars that Russia waged against various European states in the 18th–19th centuries within the framework of various coalitions also in no way turn Russia into a Eurasian power.
Moreover, the ruling class in Russia acquired European habits, and its representatives, beginning with Prince V.V. Golitsyn (1643–1714), who had "the most European palace" in Europe, were often more European than the Europeans themselves.
Catherine the Great corresponded with outstanding philosophers of France, not Asia, and a huge number of foreign specialists from Europe worked in the field of creating modern development institutions of that time in Russia.
The inclusion of the Bashkir tribes or Kazakh zhuzes into the Russian Empire did not change the structure of its governance; no governance mechanisms were borrowed from the Kalmyks, Chukchi, Nogai or Daur.
But modern Russian literature (represented by the “sun of our poetry” A.S. Pushkin) and modern music (represented by M.I. Glinka), like painting, have European roots and foundations.
Yes, at the Russian court they spoke foreign European languages for a long time, Nicholas I called himself an "Old Prussian", and the Third Section wrote reports in French. And we do not want to say that all this is very wonderful. But such is the historical situation, and to ignore it would be absurd. And all this, we repeat, does not exclude the fact that we have more than once or twice confronted European military threats.
The natural advance to the east served as the beginning of the inclusion of Asian peoples into the Russian Empire, and here, due to historical circumstances, the empire acted as a colonizer. The few Russian officials were forced to fight the customs and traditions of the annexed ethnic groups, openly calling them "savage". But, let us repeat, what borrowings could Russia have made during its conquests in Transcaucasia, the North Caucasus or Central Asia?
Of course, some external attributes, as part of the fashion for everything oriental in colonial countries, appeared in Russia (Circassian coat, hookah, shashlik or kefir, etc.), but there is no need to talk about serious cultural and social borrowings.
In socio-economic terms, Russia stood significantly higher than any neighboring Asian country or the peoples or ethnic groups included in Russia. And as I already wrote in detail in the article on VO “The Great Mistakes of the USSR: The Ethnic Question at the End of the Russian Empire"The ethnic outskirts were held together solely by the knowledge that the white tsar had military power, and with the disappearance of the feudal monarchy in 1917, nothing held them together in a single space...
In the Soviet period, first of all, it is necessary to talk about “pulling up” the peoples and ethnic groups of the former Russian Empire to the level of indigenous Russia, the Europeanization of these territories in the literal sense of the word, as the slogan in the film: “Down with prejudices. A woman is also a human being!
In Soviet times, both alphabets and even ethnic cuisines for the peoples and ethnic groups of the USSR were developed according to plan. The task of raising the cultural level was also for the Russian people, not to mention the ethnic groups of the east of our country.
The equality of all peoples of the late USSR was not declarative, but history did not give time for the leveling of the country's cultural and mental situation: time was needed to assimilate secular and European culture. But after the destruction of the system-forming communist ideology, "traditional values" returned many nationalities and ethnic groups of the USSR to the past, caused bloody events throughout Central Asia and two counter-terrorist operations in the Caucasus.
Thus, the Eurasian theory has no historical basis.
Eurasianism as a political dead end
Today it is obvious that Eurasianism is a completely unworkable and, one might even say, harmful theory for the foreign policy of our country.
The fact that we, as a country, will consider ourselves part of Asia, and not, say, Europe or the Moon, does not change anything, because diplomacy is not built around the illusory theories of “we are also yours” – bourgeois, Asian, globally southern, etc.
The basis of diplomacy is the awareness of the self-sufficiency of one’s own country, an understanding of the self-sufficiency of its history and culture.
Regardless of Eurasianism, the process of reintegration with the eastern republics of the USSR, due to the orientation of the former Soviet republics, starting with Russia, to the West, was completely missed. That is why the integration processes on the territory of the former USSR, which found their embodiment in various forms, including the still existing CIS or EurAsEC, did not develop, and the "multi-vector" declared by our country was infectious. Moreover, Russia did not exist in a vacuum, but in a tough competitive environment.
Even the important thing that united Russia and the former Soviet republics of Central Asia and Transcaucasia cannot be a reason for integration, because anti-Sovietism, as the only working ideology in the post-Soviet space, further divides all the former peoples and ethnic groups of the USSR not only internationally, but also within our country, which is worth only "Zuleikha Opens Her Eyes."
It is difficult to distinguish real planned work in the activities of our embassies in the former republics of Transcaucasia and Central Asia, and not situational reflection. Therefore, in the comments of citizens of our country, one can see such questions: why do we need this integration? Why are we feeding them? Are we being used, etc.
Neighboring countries are actively using the current difficult foreign policy and logistics (finances and goods) situation of Russia to their advantage. Thus, of course, helping our country. Despite the external demonstration of good neighborliness, the leadership of these republics has no desire to have closer political contacts with our country. Now they are focused on "multi-vectorism", and they have something to "trade" with other global players. The current situation suits them. Russia's positions in Central Asia and Transcaucasia, we must call things by their proper names, are weakening, so the dreams of the "new Eurasians" for a "rigid coupling" in our time are similar to plans to build New Vasyuki.
Post scriptum
Based on modern realities, it is obvious that in interaction with the countries of the East, we need to, first of all, realize what we need and what we want, we need clear positioning and real, not formal planning to achieve these goals. And even greater control over execution.
Copying the actions of the USSR, based on a different, directly opposite ideological basis, and especially the fantasies of the Eurasian theory, will only harm this process.
Information