Eurasian dialectics of history in the views of G.N. Polkovnikov

Abstract

On the turn of 19201930s the Eurasian movement was experiencing a crisis. Clamart Schism and financial problems hindered the ability to publish new books and attract new supporters. For various reasons many notable figures such as N.S. Trubetskoy, L.P. Karsavin, P.P. Suvchinsky, were distancing themselves from the movement. Eurasianism lasted until the second half of 1930s, largely due to the vigorous activity of P.N. Savitsky, and his associates in the Eurasian Group in Prague. During financial and personnel crises, one of the most important tasks was to preserve the publishing activities of the movement. It was in such conditions, in the early 1930s, that the book by Georgy Nikolaevich Polkovnikov, called Dialectics of History appeared. In it, the author made an attempt to describe a complex vision of the evolution of human society and its patterns in the West and in the East. Extensive attention was given to the problem of determining the place and role of Russia in the world community of nations and polities. Suffice to say that even the people who supported the movement had contradictory responses to the book. In 1930s only a few works of this volume were produced by Eurasian Publications, but in modern historiography it remains virtually unexplored and not inscribed in the history of the movement. The paper examines the role of the book and its significance in the evolution of the ideology of the Eurasian Movement.