15. RUSSIAN EURASIANISM AND AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM

Abstract

Yet, at the beginning of the 21st century, Russia has found itself in search of a lost national identity. The communist regime has collapsed, country has broken into separate nations and it has suffered a decade of deep social reform. Russian identity inevitably is, and should be, multidimensional. Russian self-perception and self-value vis-à-vis the West is an important component of this identity. The combined (but internally split) essence of Russian civilization is often defined as Eurasian. For years, Russian civilization was a mixture of European and Asian. The School of Eurasianism, which interprets Russia’s relationship with Europe and Asia, has recently been rejuvenated, based on the work of Russian political classical thinkers like N. Danilevskyi, N. Berdyaev, L. Gumilev, L. Karsavin, V. Illyin, P. Savitskyi, and N. Trubetskoy. Classical Eurasianism is aimed at overcoming the seemingly irreconcilable contradiction between the well known Slavophil and Westerner schools. Through this dialogue, debates about Russian policy toward the West have returned (after decades of Soviet ideology), seeking a middle path between the purity of Slavophils and the extremist Westerner views.

Citation

Nikitin, A.I. (2005), "15. RUSSIAN EURASIANISM AND AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM", Intriligator, M.D., Nikitin, A.I. and Tehranian, M. (Ed.) Eurasia (Contributions to Conflict Management, Peace Economics and Development, Vol. 1), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 157-170. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1572-8323(04)01015-X