Aleksandr Dugin’s transformation from a lunatic fringe figure into a mainstream political publicist, 1980–1998: A case study in the rise of late and post-Soviet Russian fascism

Abstract

The paper 1 1 The paper expands on my earlier survey : Toward an Uncivil Society? Contextualizing the Recent Decline of Parties of the Extreme Right Wing in Russia, 2002. On Dugin’s fascism, see Griffin, Loh, and Umland (2006); Umland (2006b, 2006c, 2006d), reprinted in: Verkhovskii (2006), and Laruelle (2007). was completed in 2008 and complements previous analyses of post-communist Russian right-wing extremism, in general, and studies of “neo-Eurasianism,” in particular, surveying some circumstances of the emergence of its major ideologist Aleksandr Dugin (b. 1962). It introduces some teachers and collaborators of Dugin who influenced him before he became a known journalist, writer and commentator in the late 1990s. It also sketches some of Dugin’s initiatives and activities until he rose to the position of an official advisor to Gennady Seleznev, the Speaker of the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament, in 1998. The footnotes provide a comprehensive bibliography on Western and Russian sources on the Russian “New Right.” It concludes with some suggestion where further research into the Dugin phenomenon could go. Current position Assistant Professor of Contemporary Russian History at The Catholic University of Eichstaett-Ingolstadt, Bavaria, and editor of the book series Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society ( http://www.ibidem-verlag.de/spps.html), Stuttgart and Hannover. Biographical sketch CertTransl (Leipzig), MA (Stanford), MPhil (Oxford), DipPolSci, DrPhil (FU Berlin), PhD (Cambridge). Visiting fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution in 1997–1999, and Harvard’s Weatherhead Center in 2001–2002. Bosch visiting lecturer at Yekaterinburg’s Urals State University in 1999–2001, and Kyiv’s Mohyla Academy in 2003/2005. In January-December 2004, temporary lecturer in Russian and East European studies at St. Antony’s College Oxford. In 2005–2008, German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) Lecturer Kyiv’s Shevchenko University. Papers in Problems of Post-Communism, East European Jewish Affairs, Osteuropa, Österreichische Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft, Politicheskie issledovaniya, European Political Science, Political Studies Review, The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, Voprosy filosofii, Obshchestvennye nauki i sovremennost’, Forum für osteuropäische Ideen- und Zeitgeschichte, Ab Imperio and other journals. Editor of The Implementation of the European Convention on Human Rights in Russia: Philosophical, Legal und Empirical Studies (Stuttgart: Ibidem 2004), Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaftliche Hochschullehre in Osteuropa. Vols. 1, 2, 3 & 4 (Frankfurt a.M. u.a.: Peter Lang 2005, 2006, 2007 & 2009), and, with Roger Griffin and Werner Loh, Fascism Past and Present, West and East: An International Debate on Concepts and Cases in the Comparative Study of the Extreme Right. With an afterword by Walter Laqueur (Stuttgart: Ibidem-Verlag 2006).