Analysis

March 8, 2012

Summary: Russias neoEurasianism movement holds that the peoples of the Eurasian steppe included not just the Russians but also the Turkic peoples of Central Asia, meaning that Russia is instead culturally closer to Asia than to Western Europe. As Turkey has failed to align with Europe in a formal way, the idea of Turkey as a dominant actor in Eurasia is catching on. But are Russias Eurasia and Turkeys Eurasia the same thing?

When Russian Eurasianism Meets Turkeys Eurasia

by Nadir Devlet
This is the story of an idea. The political concept of Eurasia, or Eurasianism, refers to the spiritual linking of the European and Asian peoples in the history and future of Russia. The idea behind the Eurasia movement derives from the works of Prince N. S. Trubetskoi, P. N. Savitski, G. V. Vernadski, and several others. Trubetskoi believed that the interconnection of Eastern Slavs and the Turkic and Uralo-Altaic steppe peoples or Turanian peoples is one of the main building blocks of Russian history. In the 1920s, this theoretical concept found many followers among Russian migrs dispersed in Poland, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Germany, France, and Czechoslovakia who were searching for a new theory to combat the ideological thrust of the MarxistLeninist revolution in Russia. A small Eurasianists movement developed, yet Eurasianism put down only weak roots and rapidly declined. Neo-Eurasianism, inspired by the earlier movement, gained traction and considerable popularity in Russia during the years leading up to and following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Lev Gumilev, often cited as the founder of the Neo-Eurasianist movement, developed a theory of ethnogenesis holding that the peoples of the Eurasian steppe included not just the Russians but also the Turkic peoples of Central Asia. Gumilev regarded Russians as a super-ethnos kindred to Turkic peoples of the Eurasian steppe, including the Tatars, Kazakhs, and even the Chingizid Mongolians. With this theoretical synthesis, Gumilev and his followers concluded that Russia is not a natural part of the West, that it is instead culturally closer to Asia than to Western Europe. Neo-Euransianism thus resonates with many Russian intellectuals and politicians who fear the West and are divorced from its values. The Neo-Eurasian idea also took root beyond Russia. In the capital of Kazakhstan, the L.N. Gumilev Eurasian National University was established through the initiative of President Nursultan Nazarbayev on May 23, 1996. In August 2005, authorities in Tatarstan erected a monument to Gumilev. And after 2001, a number of Gumilevs books were translated into Turkish. After the collapse of Soviet Union, the terminology of Eurasianism spread in Russia, the former Central Asian republics, Turkey, and also in the West, although interpretations of its meaning differed from place to place. In Russia,

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Analysis

Neo-Eurasianism gained traction and considerable popularity in Russia during the years leading up to and following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
some of Gumilevs ideas, including some with anti-Semitic overtones, were incorporated into the political agenda of Aleksandr Dugin. In his work Foundations of Geopolitics (1997), Dugin explained that the rule of ethnic Russians over the lands extending from Dublin to Vladivastok was a preordained and natural phenomenon. In 1998, Dugins career took a large step forward when he was named advisor on geopolitics to Genadii Seleznev, chairman of the Russian State Duma. Dugins book gained considerable currency, and today it is even being used as a text book at the General Staff Academy. On May 31, 2001, the Russian Ministry of Justice officially registered the Eurasia movement. In Dugins view, Russians will create a supra-national Empire in which ethnic Russians will occupy a privileged position. According to Dugin, China is Russias most dangerous geopolitical neighbor. Tibet, Xinjiang, Mongolia, and Manchuria (Northern China) together comprise a security belt for Russia that keeps China at some distance. A grand alliance of Russia and Turania should divide imperial spoils with the Islamic Empire in the South. Russias south is composed of the Caucasus, Central Asia, Mongolia, the Iranian Empire, and Armenia. Armenia, in Dugins thinking, will serve as the center point of a Moscow-Yerevan-Teheran axis whose purpose is to thwart any designs that Turkey might have to its north and east. Azerbaijan will be split up among Iran, Russia, and Armenia. When the second edition of Dugins book (2003) was translated into Turkish, it attracted considerable attention and quickly gained popularity. In 2010, a 7th edition was printed, and in it Dugins thinking on Russias natural allies in the Eurasia experiment took an important turn.

This was Dugins provocative appeal to Turkey in the preface, which made the last edition stand out: As a national state and NATO member, Turkey is inimical to the Eurasian projectIts selective assistance to the Chechen separatists, the permanent old TurkishArmenian dispute, its supporting of an anti-Moscow atmosphere in Baku, and all issues connected with the construction of Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, evidently suits the pro-Atlantic and anti-Eurasian strategies of Ankara. We Slavs understand the urge to empire of our comradely Turkish people, and we are ready to stretch out our hand of friendship. Eurasia is very big and its immense boundaries will be enough for everyone. But if the ominous notion that the 21st century will become the American century becomes reality, then we are going to lose our common fatherland.1 In articles Dugin published later and that were translated into Turkish, he noted the evolving attraction of the Eurasian idea to Turks: The idea of Eurasianism in Turkey took root first in the leftwing environment The Workers Party of Turkey under the leadership of Mr. Dou Perinek, its organ the journal Aydinlik and other institutions close to them, accepted Eurasianism But also rightwing nationalists, centrists, some religious circles, some military leaders of Turkish army, intellectual foundations like the Ahmed Yesevi Foundation and ASAM (Eurasian Strategic Research Center), the Dialog Eurasia Platform movement, which tries to bring members of the Commonwealth of Independent States and Turkish intellectuals closer together, and other institutions or movements showed interest to this Eurasia concept.2 Dugins Eurasian Political Party could not break the 5 percent barrier in Russias 2003 State Duma elections, but he was undeterred. In 2005, he formed the Union of Eurasianist Youth. Because of his provocative speeches about Russias unification with Ukraine, Kyiv declared him persona non grata in 2007. In May 2008 when Moscow sent
1 Aleksandr Dugin, Rus Jeopolitii. Avrasyac Yaklam, 7th ed., Istanbul: Kre Publication, 2010, pp. xv-xv 2 Aleksandr Dugin, Moskova-Ankara Ekseni. Avrasya Hareketi nin Temel Grleri, Istanbul: Kaynak Publication, 2007, pp. 128-129

Analysis
troops into separatist Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Dugin was there with his youth group as chief ideologist of expansionism and as advisor to Putins United Russia Party. On August 26, 2008, Dugin visited South Ossetia to celebrate Russias recognition of its independence, despite the farcical appearance of this action. (The larger part of Northern Ossetia, about 450,000 citizens, is a part of the Russian Federation, while Southern Ossetia with its 70,000 is now independent, thanks to Russias intervention.) From January 1, 2012, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Russia will push forward with economic integration by creating a customs union, a single economic space. Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan are also showing interest in joining, but Ukraine at the moment shows reluctance. The new customs union is a first step towards forming an EU-type economic alliance of former Soviet states. But this is not the first effort to create an organization for economic cooperation. Uzbekistan suspended its membership in the last one, the Eurasian Economic Community, in 2008, and Turkmenistan declared its intention never to join to such organizations. Kazakhstans President Nazarbayev is a different story altogether. His interest in Eurasianism has deep roots. He was influenced by Gumilevs ideas and, as noted, created a university named after him. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Turks discovered their kinship with this geography and a wave of pan-Turkish sentiment arose. Turkeys president at that time, Sleyman Demirel, spoke often of a Turkish World from the Adriatic Sea to the Great Wall of China. By this, he meant almost all territories of Turkic states in the Caucasus and Central Asia, but also former Ottoman territories in the Balkans, and possibly even the Arab peninsula. Before 1991, the term Eurasia was seldom used, but after collapse of the USSR, intellectuals, entrepreneurs, scholars, and institutions started to use Eurasia instead of the Turkish World, because it sounded more politically neutral. But many Turks adopted Eurasia without knowing the larger ideology of the original Russian construction. Books, articles, and journals almost everyone used this term, from left to the right. Nationalists, neo-Kemalists, neo-Ottomanists, and pan-Turkists adopted the term Eurasia to their own needs. In the last five to six years, at least 40 books on the subject have been published in Turkey, but only a few of these deal with the Russian Eurasian theory or project. This may be changing. The term Eurasia, stressing the geographic reality, is becoming common. For example, a marathon project first organized in 1979 on the Istanbul Bridge is now called the Eurasia Marathon, as the bridge connects the two continents. An undersea tunnel, which will connect the two continents in a few years, is called the Eurasia Tunnel. The use of the term has grown greatly in the last decade, when economic, political, and cultural relations with the Russian Federation and former Soviet republics began to expand. In 2002, a very short-lived Eurasia Party was founded in Turkey, and today many construction or textile firms, hotels, and even hospitals can be found in Turkey bearing the name Eurasia. In the cultural arena, there are a radio station, several research centers, a research institute associated with Istanbul University, a research foundation, a writers association, and even a private university in Trabzon (2011) with Eurasia in their titles. As Turkey has failed to align with Europe in a formal way, the idea of Turkey as a dominant actor in Eurasia is catching on. It is hard to imagine that these two influences are unrelated. Eurasia is becoming, at least, a notional reference point for many in Turkish life, including politicians, entrepreneurs, journalists, intellectuals, scholars, and even clergymen as an appropriate cultural anchor. Ideas about

As Turkey has failed to align with Europe in a formal way, the idea of Turkey as a dominant actor in Eurasia is catching on.
the creation of a Turkish political and economic union or building a Eurasian Common Market have emerged and are gaining traction in some quarters. In 2011, the Russian Federation was the leading importer of goods from Turkey. Turkey now relies almost totally on Russian gas via two pipelines, one through the Balkans and the second across Black Sea. And Turkey has just approved a third Russian energy route under the Black Sea, the South Stream pipeline, which could kill the rival U.S.-Europe Nabucco project to bypass Russian gas in favor of other Eurasian suppliers as a way to ease Europes energy dependence on Russia.

Analysis
Turkeys choice is telling. This suggests that economically it is already advanced in its thinking about a different kind of Eurasia, that its vision stretches beyond simple economic determinism. Russia, Turkey, Eurasia. For at least the last 400 years, as Turks and Russians fought wars and confronted each other repeatedly, such a geostrategic synthesis would have been unthinkable. Today it seems much closer to reality. This begs the question: Can Turkeys Eurasia embrace Russian Eurasianism? Right now, they are parallel but potentially convergent ideas, both representing powerful and growing forces in their societies. Will the other strong forces, especially energy and economics, that increasingly knit together the burgeoning Russo-Turkish relationship lubricate some kind of ideological synthesis, as Dugin envisioned? Can Ankaras instincts toward a more integrated Turkic world be made to fit with the Russian concept of ethnic exceptionalism that includes a strong Turkic component? Or is competition still the more likely scenario, especially as Russians lose their demographic advantage to Muslims within the Russian Federation? Is Eurasia the idea that replaces Europe in the Turkish imagination?

About the Author

Prof. Dr. Nadir Devlet teaches at the International Relations Department of Istanbul Commerce University. He concentrates on 20th and 21st century political, social, cultural, economic situations, and security issues for Turkic peoples. He has also taught at Marmara (19842001), Columbia (1989-1990), Wisconsin-Madison (1996-1997), and Yeditepe (2001-2007) universities. He has more than 20 published books in Turkish, Tatar, and English as well as some 200 articles in Turkish, Tatar, English, and Russian.

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