SUMMARY:

Since the early 1990’s, the mystic Alexander G. Dugin (b. 1962) has been a prominent figure in Russia’s neo-fascist scene and the chief propagator of an extremely anti-Western ideology labeled “Neo-Eurasianism” - a Russian adaptation of the ideas of the German inter-war “Conservative Revolution” and West Europe’s post-war “New Right” to post-Soviet realities. During the 1990s, Western observers largely ignored Dugin – one of the most productive and original publicists of the extreme right who enjoys an increasing influence on the political mainstream, and his think-tank “Arctogaia” (Northern Land) even though their continuous rise was an important expression of Russia’s growing post-Soviet “uncivil society” and was marked intensive contacts to leading West European proto-fascist intellectuals. Having, been the lead ideologist for Eduard Limonov’s National-Bolshevik Party between 1994 and 1998, Dugin became an advisor to State Duma Speaker Gennadii Seleznev in 1998. Dugin’s major work Foundations of Geopolitics was first published in 1997 and has since become an influential manifesto of radical anti-Americanism. The book is already in its fourth edition, is used in university courses on geopolitics, and has found a wide readership beyond the lunatic fringe, and even outside Russia. With the foundation of the “Eurasia” movement in spring 2001, Dugin and his followers completed their qualitative leap from the margins to the mainstream of Russian politics. They follow a Gramscian strategy, seeking to attain cultural hegemony in Russian society through an impregnation of Russia’s political and academic elite with “neo-Eurasian” ideas. The deep interest and undisguised support for the “Eurasia” movement shown by parts of the the presidential administration as well as such figures as eminent political philosopher Aleksandr Panarin (b. 1940) and well-known TV-journalist Mikhail Leont’ev (b. 1958) indicate that Dugin has become a major actor on Russia’s current ideas marketplace.