Classical Eurasianism as a Post-Revolutionary Philosophy

Abstract

ABSTRACT Classical Eurasianism (yevraziystvo, 1921-late 1930s, not including Nikolai Gumilev) is a multifaceted set of teachings centered around ideas introduced by Nikolai S. Trubetskoy (1890-1938). Out of the multitudes of Russian emigrant thought, only classical Eurasianism offered a wholesome systematic answer to two basic questions: why did the revolutionary catastrophe of 1917 occur, and what path should Russia follow after it? This answer rests first and foremost on the teachings of Trubetskoy who, since his Europe and Humankind published in 1920, strongly opposed Eurocentrism providing a sophisticated theoretical argument for this conclusion, and insisted on Russia’s returning to its self, to the inherent logic of its culture and its history. Classical Eurasianism elaborated the concept vsechelovecheskoye which had been introduced by Russian thinkers in the early nineteenth century in opposition to obshechelovecheskoye. Both notions point to the universality of the human mind, human culture, and human civilization; but there is a fundamental difference in logical vehicles used to arrive at the universal. The vsechelovecheskoye presupposes “gathering” logically diverse models without imposing any general restriction on them, while the obshechelovecheskoye is an understanding of the universal as grounded in the generic or general, which is well-known to the Western reader. A set of basic philosophic notions of classical Eurasianism related to vsechelovecheskoye include: sobornost’, obshee delo (common work), demotia (direct rule of people), pravashiy otbor (ruling selection), pravda (verity), and others.