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The Eurasian Politician - July 2003
by Galya Andreyeva Krasteva, 11 July 2003
Every modern political idea, and every political act inspirited by it, has its deep historical roots. The Eurasianism, now gaining popularity in Russia is not an exception. It's reasonable to say that the entire vision of this ideological trend is a mix of different political and moral perceptions. As a whole it is product of long-standing accumulations on the "Russia-Eurasia" mental field. This means, that every valuable assessment of the modern Eurasianism should be in accordance to its ideological ancestors.
Here we will pay special attention to the conflicting ethnogenesis theory of Lev Gumilyov. The main approach is the understanding that this Eurasianism is a kind of bridge between the 'classical' Eurasianism from the beginning of the 20th century, and the neo-Eurasianism, which is popular in Russia at the beginning of the 21st century. Gumilyov recognizes himself as a follower of Trubetskoy and Savitsky, and on the other side, Aleksandr Dugin, the main theoretician of the modern idea "Russia-Eurasia", puts both names among those, who have made great contribution to the neo-Eurasian doctrine. Gumilyov has an important role for the genesis of the contemporary Eurasianism, although it's understood only as a stage to it, but not as a concrete scientific subject /1/.
The specific goal of this article is to present the main elements of Gumilyov's critics towards the western civilization, his specific interpretation of disintegration process in the USSR, and his conclusions towards the future of Russia-Eurasia.
The hardest moment in an ethnos' life is the one that represents transitional phase, says Gumilyov. The main characteristic of every transitional phase is a deep crisis, caused by the changes in the level and the strength of passionarity, as well as the necessity of change in behavioral stereotypes and the necessity of adaptation for the next phase. For every ethnos the transition phases have different intensity and different consequences. According to Gumilyov, the passion variation, that is the main reasons for the changes in the process of ethnogenesis, is what creates historical events./2/ According to that, he insists that it's impossible to have only one history, which covers the life of all different ethnoses. Only the distinct history of every concrete ethnos and super-ethnos is real, and the reason is that each of them has its own passionate energy, its own behavioral stereotypes, and its own system of values. "Thus, there's no reason of talking about the whole mankind history. The so-called "common history" is only a mechanical sum of the different super-ethnos' history knowledge, because, from the ethnological point of view, the mankind is not a phenomenological community. Thus, every discourse, concerning the "human values priority" is naïve, but not harmless"./3/
Following the Eurasian traditions of Trubetskoy and Savitsky, Gumilyov makes assessments of the nations and ethnoses throughout the prism of such real and relative indicators like moral and cultural values. The real existence of common values, says he, needs the fusion of the whole mankind in one hyper-ethnos. Being consistent, Gumilyov insist that, the different levels of passionarity for the different super-ethnoses, as well as the different natural landscapes require specific adaptation in every different case, making such a fusion not likely to happen, and the triumph of the human values has become only another huge world utopia. It is most likely that the value and behavioral model of one given ethnos to prevail over the others. The reason, says Gumilyov, is very simple - the super-ethnical value systems, as a rule, except each other. Their unification is very difficult, because of their original functional role - the values are the factor, which joins one or another person to a concrete ethnical community, and they prevent the super-ethnos unification. As an example, Gumilyov uses a lot of unsuccessful attempts for over-confessional communities to be created.
Although, the stable and permanent fusion of two or more ethnoses is impossible, there is another scenario that could appear - after a deep internal disintegration, a part of one ethnos could join other super-ethnos. Applied to Russian history, that corresponds to some Russia's intentions to enter "the European civilized nations' family", and to take part in the formation of new super-ethnical system. Gumilyov is very suspicious about such a possibility. Even the realization of the wide-proclaimed "Common European Community" has no chance to become a center, where the "mankind values" would dominate, says Gumilyov. Such situation could become disastrous for Russia. As a great country, it can't neither lose its own identity, nor reject the values and behavioral models, which differentiate her from the other world, and which give reason for her existence as a nation, and as a state. "The dominance of western European canons of behaviour and western European psychology would be the price which we should pay for our entrance in the civilisation" /4/, concludes Gumilyov.
According to the theoretical scheme of the ethnogenesis, the situation in which is Russia, gives enough obvious decisions to which its political orientation could be directed. The passionate boom, that starts the genesis of Russian super-ethnos, is based, by Gumilyov, in the middle of the 13th century. Every simple calculation shows that the age of Russia is about 800 years, which means that it lives one of the hardest moments in the ethnos life. In Gumilyov's terms - the transition from fission to inertia. In that sense, the crisis, experienced by post-soviet Russia is totally predictable, that shows the socio-economical and political indices. The fission phase, says Gumilyov, has started after the Fatherland War in 1812, and its hardest moment was that of the Soviet rule, when the ethnos' entity had been lost and the bloodshed of the Civil War took place. The next stage - Gorbachev's Perestroyka, is understood as a kind of attempt for transition to the new, inertial phase. Gumilyov's interpretation of this period's changes is really curious. They are not just the last, but from ethnical point of view the only possible chance for the Russian super-ethnos to be enlivened. According to this theory, there's no vital way for those super-ethnoses, which didn't succeed in such a transition, and they are ill-fated. The best they could experience is internal disintegration and unification with some other super-ethnical system. The age of the super-ethnos is the factor that determines every Russian historical particularity. Thus, every attempt for comparison between Russia and the other world - in concrete economical, social, demographic, political or cultural indices, is malapropos, and the uselessness is its main characteristic.
The different stages, which different nations and cultures are on, give Gumilyov reason to state that the European super-ethnos is 500 years older than the Russian. What happened in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century was the subject of the west European history at the end of the 15th and the beginning of the 16th century. "We passed the Renaissance, it's over. Now, we have to pass the Reformation." /5/ The welfare, the civic peace, the respect and honor of human rights - the characteristics of modern Europe, are result of long and cruel historical process. The civil wars in Russia, at the beginning of the 20th century, are compared by Gumilyov with the bloodshed in France and the confrontation between dukes of Orléans and Burgundy. "Today we must not even try to imitate Europe; we can not achieve her welfare and her moral, because our passionate level, and our value imperatives, suggest quite different behaviour." /6/
Gumilyov doesn't allow the ethnogenetic facts to become absolutes and keeps his scientific and social criticism towards Russian post-soviet agenda. The experienced lack of its passionarity is not the only reason for the acts of separatism, which appeared after 1990, says Gumilyov. It is a very important reason, but there's one more that could explain them better. In every phase of fission, he continues, together with the lack of passionarity, could be observed the super-ethnos' dispersion and decentralization. At this moment, the province's intention for independence increases and the passionate individuals move from the center to the provinces. At the final phase of the process of ethnogenesis, the passionate forces of the center are less stable compared with those of the peripheral zones. This is a logical stage of the historical process and the energetic people desire for more freedom and space for their individual expression. As a result, they leave the capital, go to the provincial towns and distant areas and adopt new places. In several generations the contrary process starts - the children and grandchildren of these individuals move back to the capital and the huge industrial, political and cultural centres.
Gumilyov enriches this idea with some concrete examples from the modern Russia political practice - B. N. Yeltsin and N. I. Rizhkov are Ukrainians, M. S. Gorbachev comes from the North Caucasus. To take part in the highest political institutions, which required presence in the capital, was one of the easiest ways for provincial representatives to take control over the federation politics. The last has special importance when one keeps in mind the fact that the former socialist republics have been treated by the central communist authority only as a source for the state budget, and the local people have been denied the minimum of human rights. All these - the tension that has been built up through the years between the central and the local authorities, between the Russian and all the other ethnoses, between the Russian language and the desire for preservation of traditional local languages and moral values, the rejection of the regime to recognize the rights and the equality of the different federation elements, have become intense catalyst for the separatism. Because of the lack of independent governance, the lack of effective coordination between the center and the periphery and the lack of dialogue, the disintegration has been inevitable, concludes Gumilyov. Such outcome could have been realistic only if Gorbachev's policy was consistent, substantial, and not demagogic and superficial. "In this sense, 'the sovereignty parade' hasn't been programmed in the process of ethnogenesis. There was a real chance for it to be prevented, only if the communist government hadn't followed 'the party course'. The very fact of the existence of different ethnoses in the country has been consciously ignored, so it provoked this separation." /7/
The most unpleasant consequence of this policy at the beginning of 90s, insists Gumilyov, is the identification, the equalization of the terms "Russian" and "Communist". The Russian ethnos, as well as the other ethnoses, hasn't had the possibility to pursue independent nationalistic policy. In this sense, it has been injured as much as the others, small ethnoses. As long as this confrontation hasn't been stopped, as long as the Russians are recognized as the only culprits of the current tragic conditions on the great Russia-Eurasia territory and the nations living on it, as long as the ideological intolerance exists, Russia would experience permanent crisis, forecasts Gumilyov. In such direction is his appeal, related to the future of Russia and most of Eurasia: "For a living in an entity you need to respect those people, who you incorporate to your system. It is possible to insist for something, but moderately, and only if they are able to give you what you want. Do not disturb their way of life, respect their traditions." /8/
This is the only way for the preservation of ethnical pluralism and geographical integrity of Eurasia, as well as the widely proclaimed democracy values to be sustained. These are the main conclusions of the ethno-cultural and spatially based Eurasian theory of Lev Gumilyov.
If the whole theory of Gumilyov is accepted, we could make several historical conclusions, which would be completely committed and dependent on it. However, generality and embracement are not the main characteristics of Gumilyov's methodology. It is limited in the narrow frames of the theory of ethnogenesis and do not possess sufficient and doubtless scientific potential. It could be priceless for both ethnology and geopolitics, although it cannot pass deep and entirely rational analysis. Like the 'classical' Eurasianism from the beginning of the 20th century, the thesis of Gumilyov is based on vague, excessively abstract, religious and dogmatic arguments. Because of this disadvantage, or distinction, neither of the two Eurasianisms cannot be accepted in the Western conception of rational, scientific theory. If, however, they become foundation for a reasonable political intention, which is found in the neo-Eurasianism, they could serve only as an ideology, as a political doctrine, as a curious and non-traditional perception for the history and the future of Russia-Eurasia. In my opinion, the complete realization of such ideas into concrete political practice lies in the sphere of the improbability.
For the researcher of Gumilyov's theory and leader of the modern Russian "Partiya Yevraziya", Aleksandr Dugin, this is a completely realistic political strategy. According to him, the most important conclusion which could be made through the theory of passionarity, and which concerns Russia's destiny, is that Russians are a fresh and young ethnos, who has the potential to consolidate the super-ethnos of Russia-Eurasia. Although the fact that Gumilyov doesn't have his own political doctrine, Dugin managed in deducing several basic geopolitical thesis, in respect of the future, national and geopolitical orientation of the state:
Such kind of interpretation is really harmonious with the goals and the understandings of the modern followers of the "Russia-Eurasia" idea. It is doubtful if it corresponds to what Gumilyov has worked for. But there's no doubt that the theory of passionarity contains mighty impulses for expression of critical attitudes and radical non-acceptance of the one-dimensional vision for understanding and explanation of the world history. And this is exactly the main neo-Eurasian goal. The realization of some of its aspects doesn't seem completely impossible. To the regret of the Russians or to the regret of the Europeans? This question still remains unrevealed. Or it's better to say - it has too many, too correct and too absurd answers. And Russia could choose each of them…
1 Dugin, A., Forumai Arctogei (Geopolitik):
Imperskaia idea i russkii nacionalism:
Evolucia nacionalnoi idei, http://www.arctogaia.com/forum
2 Gumilyov,
L.N., Ermolaev, V.U., "Gore ot iluzii" / "Osnovai
Evraziistva", Moscow, 2002, p.469
3 Ibid
4 Ibid, p.470
5 Ibid, p.475
6 Ibid, p.472
7 Ibid, p.473
8 Gumilyov,
L.N., "Mai absolutno samobaitnai" / "Osnovai
Evraziistva", Moscow, 2002, p.477
9 Dugin, A.,
"Osnovai Geopolitiki", M, 1991/
http://www.arctogaia.com/public/osnovygeo/geopol2
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The author is a Ph.D. student in the University of Sofia, Bulgaria, but she currently lives in London. Her doctoral thesis is dedicated to "The Russian Nationalism in the Theory of Eurasianism", and she has studied both the historical "classical" Eurasianism and the contemporary Neo-Eurasianism, paying special attention to the theoretical foundations of theses lines of thought.
[Note by The Eurasian Politician editor: The editors have chosen to transliterate Russian "e" as "ye" or "yo", so that it would correspond the spelling of these names. Hence "Yeltsin" instead of "Eltsin", and "Gumilyov" instead of "Gumilev".]