Shades of grey in Russian pre-Soviet geopolitical traditions

Abstract

The article revisits scholarly conceptualizations of Russian geopolitical traditions focusing on the pre-Soviet “classical period” and attempts to offer an alternative, more general typology with the goal of decomposing different traditions and comparing the interaction of their constituent parts. It contests the purity of any tradition and presents them as interacting, competing, overlapping and penetrating one another at the levels of three frames—identity, ideology, and paradigm. Through this theoretical discussion we will be guided by three companions—thinkers of the second half of the nineteenth century whose geopolitically relevant works can be located in different overlaps of geopolitical traditions and escape simple labels: Boris Chicherin, Vladimir Solov'ev, and Konstantin Leont'ev. Finally, the article examines the overlap of all three geopolitical traditions and identifies here stable parts of geopolitical culture of pre-Soviet Russia.