Between Europe and Asia

Between Europe and Asia analyzes the origins and development of Eurasianism, an intellectual movement that proclaimed the existence of Eurasia, a separate civilization coinciding with the former Russian Empire. The essays in the volume explore the historical roots, the heyday of the movement in the 1920s, and the afterlife of the movement of the Soviet and post-Soviet periods. The first study to offer a multifaceted account of Eurasianism's influences beyond Russia. The Eurasionists blended their search for primordial essence of Russian culture with the radicalism of Europe's interwar period. In reaction to the devastation and dislocation of the wars and revolutions, they celebrated the Orthodox Church and the Asian connections of Russian culture, while rejecting Western individualism and democracy. The movement sought to articulate a non-European, non-Western modernity and to underscore Russia's role in the colonial world. As the authors demonstrate, Eurasianism was akin to many fascist movements in interwar Europe and has now become one of the sources of the rhetoric of nationalist mobilization in Vladimir Putin's Russia. -- from back cover.