Eurasianism and the European Far Right: Reshaping the Europe-Russia Relationship 149851068X, 9781498510684

Citation preview

Eurasianism and the European Far Right

Eurasianism and the European Far Right Reshaping the Europe–Russia Relationship Edited by Marlene Laruelle

LEXINGTON BOOKS Lanham • Boulder • New York • London

Published by Lexington Books An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowman.com Unit A, Whitacre Mews, 26-34 Stannary Street, London SE11 4AB Copyright © 2015 by Lexington Books All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Eurasianism and the European far right : reshaping the Europe-Russia relationship / edited by Marlene Laruelle. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4985-1068-4 (cloth : alkaline paper) – ISBN 978-1-4985-1069-1 (ebook) 1. Europe, Western–Relations–Russia (Federation) 2. Russia (Federation)–Relations–Europe, Western. 3. Eurasian school. 4. Radicalism–Europe, Western. 5. Radicalism–Russia (Federation) 6. Dugin, Aleksandr–Political and social views. 7. Ideology–Political aspects–Europe, Western. 8. Ideology–Political aspects–Russia (Federation) 9. Europe, Western–Politics and government–1989- 10. Russia (Federation)–Politics and government–1991- I. Laruelle, Marl?ne. D1065.R9E87 2015 327.4047–dc23 2015013549 TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Printed in the United States of America

Contents

Foreword

vii

Introduction Marlene Laruelle

xi

1 Dangerous Liaisons: Eurasianism, the European Far Right, and Putin’s Russia Marlene Laruelle Part I: Alexander Dugin’s Trajectory: Mediating European Far Right to Russia 2 Alexander Dugin and the West European New Right, 1989–1994 Anton Shekhovtsov 3 Moscow State University’s Department of Sociology and the Climate of Opinion in Post-Soviet Russia Vadim Rossman Part II: France, Italy, and Spain: Dugin’s European Cradles 4 A Long-Lasting Friendship: Alexander Dugin and the French Radical Right Jean-Yves Camus 5 From Evola to Dugin: The Neo-Eurasianist Connection in Italy Giovanni Savino 6 Arriba Eurasia?: The Difficult Establishment of NeoEurasianism in Spain Nicolas Lebourg v

1

33 35

55

77 79 97

125

vi

Contents

Part III: Turkey, Hungary, and Greece: Dugin’s New Conquests 7 “Failed Exodus”: Dugin’s Networks in Turkey Vügar İmanbeyli 8 Deciphering Eurasianism in Hungary: Narratives, Networks, and Lifestyles Umut Korkut and Emel Akçali 9 The Dawning of Europe and Eurasia?: The Greek Golden Dawn and Its Transnational Links Sofia Tipaldou

143 145

175

193

Part IV: Conclusion: The European Far Right at Moscow’s Service? 221 10 Far-Right Election Observation Monitors in the Service of the Kremlin’s Foreign Policy 223 Anton Shekhovtsov References

245

Index

259

About the Contributors

273

Foreword

It is almost trite to observe that the extended region that is the focus of this volume—Europe, including Russia—has seen profound upheaval in the course of its writing. We set out some two years ago to explore a specific topic—Alexander Dugin and his Eurasianist school of thought, including his reach into the intellectual and policy worlds of contemporary Russia. That purpose remains valid, and it is taken up in several of the chapters herein. But clearly there is a salience and growing relevance well beyond Russia, beyond the contentious question of the degree of authority Dugin wields in the corridors of Kremlin power. It was this realization that led us to look beyond Dugin, or at least beyond Dugin in Russia, and to examine the rise of farright movements across Europe and their often warm opinion of Russia. As Anton Shekhovtsov observes, Dugin’s worldview is rooted in Western, rather than Slavic, intellectual tradition. As Andreas Umland and others have pointed out, Dugin’s intellectual forebears are Western New Right thinkers such as Alain de Benoist, Jean-François Thiriart, and Robert Steuckers, and he has a twenty-year history of engagement with far-right ideologists in many European countries. And as Marlene Laruelle argues, Dugin draws upon these with a clear strategic purpose—to use them as an intellectual foundation for Russia to regain its lost great-power status. Recent events in Europe have only reinforced the Dugin/Europe nexus, in a number of ways. The 2015 attacks on Charlie Hebdo in Paris and in Copenhagen have provided strong cannon fodder for many of Dugin’s European bedfellows. First, their ultranationalist rhetoric mirrors Dugin’s own call for “genocide . . . of the race of Ukrainian bastards,” echoing Nazi ambitions against Europe’s Jews. Second, the rightist animus is strongly anti-immigrant, even though the suspected perpetrators of the Charlie Hebdo massacre were not immigrants. In France, Marine Le Pen, leader of the Front National, vii

viii

Foreword

whom many now see as the front runner in the 2017 presidential election race, spoke of “inaction and denial. . . . The country’s two main political parties have failed to stem the Islamist tide.” The French far-right organization Bloc Identitaire echoed this, declaring, “No one could claim they were fighting jihadism without questioning massive immigration and Islamization.” In Italy, Matteo Salvini, leader of the xenophobic Northern League party, proclaimed, “We are housing our own enemies. . . . Block the illegal immigrant invasion, NOW!” In Austria, the Identitarian movement spoke of “an attack on all Europeans that defend themselves against the Islamicization of their homeland.” But the picture is more complicated than this. Dugin himself is an Islamophile who has been supportive of Russia’s increasing links to the Islamic world, at least to those countries seen as anti-American. However, his connections in Europe are, with some exceptions, more clearly Islamophobic than he is, and this contradiction can be explained by Dugin’s long “bedfellowing” with radical far-right movements inspired by fascism and postwar Nazism. Moreover, in the wake of the Greek elections in January 2015, much has been made of Dugin’s links to the upper ranks of the new leftist-led Syriza government. Ironically, there are also demonstrable ties between Dugin and Syriza’s improbable coalition partner, the ultra-Right Independent Greeks party, and with the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn. In a climate of mutual acrimony while Greece seeks to extend its $172 billion rescue program with foreign creditors, especially Germany, the prospect of getting support from Russia as a bulwark against the Western “Atlanticist” powers beckons appealingly for a Greece in crisis. Finally, it must be added that this concatenation of events should not lead us to read too much into their unfolding. The fact that Greece’s new foreign minister, Nikos Kotzias, invited Dugin to speak at Piraeus University in 2013 does not render invalid Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’ opposition to sanctions on Russia. Nor is there an equivalence, as some have tried to construct, between the invitation to Dugin and Tsipras’s first official invitee to his residence following the election—Russian ambassador Andrei Maslov. There are circumstances in play here that go well beyond Dugin and his influence, the main one being Russia’s rising soft power among European parties and countries that feel victims of the European Union “technocracy,” and that look for new allies to denounce the current “mainstream” and its austerity policy, and call on the “periphery” to resist the “system.” All this is to say that these chapters and their central topic, neo-Eurasianism and its European far-right connections, are of vital and timely relevance. On behalf of the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, which administered part of the project, I thank a remarkable team of scholars from across Europe, representing the true vanguard of those who study and report on the far right; and, especially, Dr. Marlene Laruelle, the wise and deter-

Foreword

ix

mined shepherd of the project who has guided it to such a rich conclusion, one that will be of immeasurable value to the growing community of scholars, policy makers, and media who are absorbed in these critical issues of the day. —David Speedie Director, U.S. Global Engagement Program Senior Fellow, Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs

Introduction Marlene Laruelle

Eurasianism and the European far right. To most readers, these two terms have nothing in common, and their links are impossible to comprehend. Eurasia is known to be an aspirational term through which the Russian authorities claim the great-powerness of their country and their right to have a say in the geopolitical orientations of their neighbors. By bringing “Asia” into “Europe,” the term resonates as intrinsically anti-European, prodding Russia to look East. The European far right is identified as a constellation of groups and parties, some very radical and expressing neo-Nazi references, others more “mainstream” and espousing a more pragmatic, xenophobic, and anti–European Union agenda. What do these two trends, Eurasianism in Russia, and the far right in Europe, have to say about each other? In many ways, they are two sides of the same coin. Ideologically, Eurasianism is the Russian version of the European far right. The founding fathers of Eurasianism, living as émigrés in European capitals in the 1920s and 1930s, were impressed and inspired by the German Conservative Revolution and its combination of “nationalism” and “conservatism.” They associated its main thesis, the need for a Third Way between capitalism and communism, with a belief in Russia as the Third Continent between Europe and Asia. While they renounced Nazism, which they regard as pure racism, they followed very closely Italian fascism, in which they saw an inspiration for a future Eurasian Russia. Today, Alexander Dugin, the main ideologue of neo-Eurasianism since the collapse of the Soviet Union, has played a key role in mediating far-right theories in Russia. His definition of Eurasianism entirely overlaps with the Conservative Revolution à la russe. Yet contrary to the founding fathers of Eurasianism, Dugin borrows from the whole spectrum of far-right doctrines and does not limit himself to the Third Way theories. He is directly inspired by so-called Esoteric Nazism xi

xii

Introduction

and his metaphorical language calls indeed for violence. He borrows also from some of the New Right theories. He thus offers a complex doctrinal spectrum that is always in intimate dialogue with movements coming from Western Europe. Eurasianism in Russia and the far right in Europe share more than doctrinal principles inspired by fascist traditions. Their beliefs push them to interpret the international order with similar toolkits. In both cases, the enemy is identified as the United States (as both a country and a civilization) and liberalism (both political and moral, and sometimes—but not always—economic) as its ideological backbone. In their worldview, resistance to this international order can emerge only from countries or regions where antiEnlightenment values are well preserved and cherished. Europe should be one of them. This statement is aspirational: the Europe they dream of does not exist. On the contrary, both Eurasianism and the far right complain about the construction of the European Union, which is viewed as a bureaucratic, dehumanized machine that serves U.S. interests and liberal values—the accepted or implied objectives of which are the destruction of authentic European values and the underlying identity of the continent. Today neo-Eurasianism holds the view that Europe’s real nature is to ally with Eurasia to form the Heartland—a continental mass able to resist maritime powers such as the United States, its subordinate, the United Kingdom, and their allies on other continents, thanks to an extreme ideology directly inspired by fascism. Thus neo-Eurasianism is not anti-European, but instead anti-Western, anti-Transatlantic, and anti-liberal, and it believes in the common destiny of European and Eurasian peoples. A majority of the European far right shares this vision of a united continent. Their enemies are the same, especially the European Union, as are their hopes for a pan-European future for “white” or “Christian” peoples in which Russia would have a role. This is not only a result of recent evolutions linked to the European construction. Many of the Conservative Revolution theoreticians of the 1920s and 1930s were impressed by the messianic forces unleashed by the Bolshevik Revolution and sought a strategic partnership with a phoenix-like Russia. During World War II, the Nazi regime and its allies searched for a pan-European idea that would catalyze nationalist energies toward a common goal without triggering fratricidal conflicts. Fascist groups revived and updated this idea in the 1960s, as they sought to abandon Nazi ideology on German exceptionalism in favor of a pan-European phenomenon. Their movement, Young Europe (YE), was named after the 1942 Third Reich journal of the same name. One of YE’s main ideologists, JeanFrançois Thiriart, who served in the Waffen-SS and defended collaboration with the Nazi regime, advanced the slogan of a Europe “from Reykjavik to Vladivostok,” thus inviting Soviet Russia to join this new political construction. In the 1980s, Thiriart reaffirmed his pledge: “If Moscow wants to make

Introduction

xiii

Europe European, I preach total collaboration with the Soviet enterprise. I will then be the first to put a red star on my cap. Soviet Europe, yes, without reservations.” 1 This shared aspiration of what Europe’s future should be—unified, detached from the trans-Atlantic world, and turned toward its continental neighbor, Russia—also provides a common ground for the current honeymoon between European far-right parties and Vladimir Putin’s Russia. But the toolkit for analyzing this agenda is far more complex than the one needed to comprehend the contacts between Dugin’s neo-Eurasianism and his farright counterparts in Europe. Contrary to frequent media statements, Dugin’s theories are not the direct inspiration for Putin’s regime and its quest for great-powerness. The Kremlin has not made official any new state ideology inspired by the Conservative Revolution, even if it borrows some themes from it. However, in Europe the Kremlin has recently acquired more or less the same allies that Dugin has cultivated for more than two decades. As seen from the Kremlin, those who denounce Brussels’ technocrats and their submission to U.S. interests are potential friends of Russia. In addition to this geopolitical orientation, the European far right shares with the Russian regime a similar anti-liberal narrative that denounces economic and political modernity, individualism, the destruction of so-called traditional values, and imposition of external cultural standards. But although Dugin and the European far right belong to the same ideological world and can be seen as twins, the alliance between Putin’s regime and the European far right is more a marriage of convenience than one of true love. This brief sketch outlines how Eurasianism in Russia and the far right in Europe share many beliefs, principles, and common geopolitical aims. This volume aims at untangling this puzzle by tracing the ideological origins and individual paths that have materialized in their permanent dialogue. The historical roots of this exchange have only been partly studied. The mutual influence between the founding fathers of Eurasianism and the German Conservative Revolution remains largely unexplored, as do the poorly understood relations between postwar far-right movements and the Soviet Union. This volume focuses on the contemporary situation—with regular references to history—to provide the keys to analyze Dugin’s networks in Europe. In chapter 1, I summarize the established findings and offer tools for interpreting this alliance, both historically and ideologically, taking into account the profound changes since the Ukrainian crisis began in 2014, as this constitutes a turning point in the Russia-Europe relationship. In particular I question where the Russian state fits into this overarching picture? I try to comprehend the troika of Dugin’s networks, the European far right, and Putin’s regime by avoiding the trap of assuming that Dugin is Putin’s “guru” or that Putin is simply mimicking Dugin’s extreme theories.

xiv

Introduction

In chapters 2 and 3, Anton Shekhovtsov and Vadim Rossman explore the personal trajectory of Alexander Dugin. Shekhovtsov digs into Dugin’s first trips to Europe between 1989–1990 and 1994, which allowed him to develop personal ties with European far-right doctrinaires and to consolidate his role as a translator—both literally and metaphorically—of this European legacy into the Russian-speaking world and adapting it to Russian intellectual traditions. Rossman follows Dugin’s career at Moscow State University prior to his sacking in the summer of 2014 and demonstrates how his Center for Conservative Research was able to thrive within the corrupt and archaic Sociology Department and provided an academic stage when Dugin’s European fellow-travelers visited Russia. The second section (chapters 4, 5, and 6) explores Dugin’s connections in his three main partner-countries, France, Italy, and Spain, where he began establishing links in the early 1990s. Jean-Yves Camus investigates the case of France, a country central to Dugin’s personal and intellectual lives as well as to Russia’s grand strategy in Europe. Not only were French New Right ideologists the first to receive Dugin and introduce him to their intellectual circles, but the rising power of the National Front and its Russia-friendly policies make France a critical component of Russia-Europe interactions. Giovanni Savino turns his attention to Italy, the second country to host Dugin, where old ties are constantly updated by regular trips and joint publications. Close links between Silvio Berlusconi and his political-business structures and Putin’s Russia further amplify the synergy between Italian and Russian far-right groups. Finally, Nicolas Lebourg takes on the case of Spain. Although Dugin was deeply influenced by his Spanish readings, and their esoteric Nazi and Falangist assumptions, these ties are looser, and no major party truly voices Dugin’s ideas in the Spanish world. The third part of the volume (chapters 7, 8, and 9) is devoted to three other countries where Dugin’s influence emerged in the 2000s: Turkey, Hungary, and Greece. Vügar İmanbeyli analyzes the case of Turkey, a country about which Dugin’s thinking underwent a 180-degree turn, from denouncing it as the U.S. Trojan horse to celebrating its new found Eurasian destiny. The second case study is Hungary, where the radical party Jobbik, which has developed close ties with Dugin, seems to be in a kind of ideological symbiosis with the Orbán government’s pro-Russian stance. Last, but not least, Greece’s Golden Dawn also is a cherished partner of Dugin, sharing neoNazi references and a common Orthodox background. These three cases feature several similarities. More clearly than in France, Italy, and Spain, Dugin’s connections with far-right groups there are echoed in some way at a quasi-governmental level. In all three cases, the synergy with Russia came during periods of grave national identity crises: in Turkey when the Islamic party of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan replaced the Kemalist government, and in Hungary and Greece when European economic crisis hit. More puzzling, in

Introduction

xv

both Turkey and Greece—and also, to a lesser extent, in Italy—Dugin is increasing his contacts with groups identified “on the left” side of the political spectrum, which opens a wider discussion regarding their unsuspected common ground. In chapter 10, Anton Shekhovtsov examines the Kremlin’s policy of establishing alternate election-monitoring organizations that serve Moscow’s foreign policy in the so-called Near Abroad—the post-Soviet countries that neighbor Russia. These alternate organizations are populated largely by European far-right groups and leaders, whose previously obscure contacts seem to have suddenly gained media visibility and official recognition from the Russian state. This edited volume is a pioneering project. It advances more questions than answers, omits some countries, groups, and personalities of interest, could not identify all underground connections, sometimes lacks reliable sources to strengthen the analysis, and does not draw from Russian archives, which are mostly closed. Nonetheless, this volume hopes to partly fill the gap in analyzing the understudied pan-European far right’s connections with Russia. Far from being a simple disciple of Europe, as Russian intellectuals have lamented since the nineteenth century, Russia played and still plays a structural role in shaping the political and ideological evolutions of the European continent. NOTE 1. Jean Thiriart, “L’Europe jusqu’à Vladivostok,” Nationalisme et République, no. 9 (1992).

Chapter One

Dangerous Liaisons Eurasianism, the European Far Right, and Putin’s Russia Marlene Laruelle

Precarious ties loosely bind contemporary European far-right movements with a small group of Russian political and intellectual figures. Over the years, Alexander Dugin, the leader of the Russian New Right and a theoretician of fascism and Eurasianism, was virtually alone in his conviction that Western-born political ideologies would help Russia tap into new political doctrines and recover its great-power status. In the second half of the 2000s, Dugin was joined and even surpassed by other Russian players searching for allies in Europe. These newcomers benefitted from better-articulated Kremlin networks, while Dugin often is too radical to be trusted by Russian authorities. Although it would be a mistake to say that the presidential administration draws directly and unreservedly on Dugin’s cache of European contacts without having developed its own, the overlaps are obvious. Such connections raise the question of the nature of these “dangerous liaisons” and the agenda behind them. Scholarly works on the far right begin with terminological cautiousness. Academic use has to be dissociated from the general use of a terminology often brandished to denounce political enemies. In this article, the terms “neo-Nazi” and “neofascist” are limited to parties that openly lay claim to historical Nazism or fascism and seek to reestablish it. The term “far right” is attributable more expansively to all movements that deny the notion of equality between people, regardless of their positions on economic issues. They may advance arguments supporting nationalization of the private sector or economic protectionism. I will not differentiate among the far-, radical-, 1

2

Marlene Laruelle

extreme-, and ultra-right in this piece; although these differences may be important, they are not at the core of this chapter, and the lack of differentiation does not undermine the analysis. The culture of the extreme right, more than other political cultures, is a highly segmented ecosystem of groups or factions; movements, blogs, and websites; and publishers and magazines that simultaneously collaborate and compete. Far-right groups tend to overstate their numbers, influence, and connections in order to position themselves as part of a structured international movement. Moreover, their networks are difficult to analyze: open sources may be lacking, discussions may be underground, rumors can spread from one source to the other without any reliable documentation, and personal friendships can be more important than ideological commitments. Additionally, identifying a connection between two movements does not necessarily reveal any direction of influence. Ideological stimuli are more often a matter of cross-pollenization than an unidirectional dynamic. TRACKING HISTORICAL CONTACTS BETWEEN THE RUSSIAN AND EUROPEAN FAR RIGHTS Contacts between far-right movements in Europe and Russia existed before the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, even though they were rare because the Russian groups were strongly anti-Western and insisted on Russia’s distinct path (Sonderweg). However, the same ideologies were circulating in both the European and Eurasian spaces, in particular the infamous Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which provided the doctrinal foundation for many anti-Semitic movements. The first political organization in Russia to form on the right was the loyalist Russian Assembly (Russkoe sobranie), started in 1900–1901 at the initiative of Prince Dmitri P. Golytsin. It brought together aristocrats from both capitals, St. Petersburg and Moscow, who were concerned with the “cosmopolitanism” of the upper classes, but not the problems affecting minor land-owning nobles. The movement became politicized in 1904–1905. The atmosphere of uncertainty in Russia during the war with Japan and subsequent revolutionary events in St. Petersburg led this elitist and somewhat anti-Semitic right to give its support to newly emerged radical movements. Far-right groups fully emerged in Russia with the Revolution of 1905, and this suddenly obtained political freedom encapsulated their ambivalence. They advocated for an absolute autocracy and rejected parliamentarism, yet owed their existence to the creation of the State Duma (the parliamentary assembly) and the legalization of political parties. They hesitated between withholding action to respect traditional hierarchies and transitioning to terrorism. They sought support from Nicholas II but critiqued the tsar for not

Dangerous Liaisons

3

acting as the ordinary people’s father. They swung between supporting the nobility or the merchant classes and workers. 1 The main far-right movement that developed from the revolution was the Black Hundreds (Chernaya sotnya), famous for their virulent anti-Semitism and their pogroms against Jews and Ukrainians. Throughout its existence, the movement was manipulated by tsarist forces, especially the Okhrana secret police, by secretly financing it and strategically withholding police intervention during pogroms. Unlike the Italian Fascist and German Nazi movements, the Black Hundreds never had the courage to break with their funders and establish themselves as an independent force. Unlike French “integral nationalism” that came into conflict with the Catholic hierarchy, the Russian far right developed in the shadow of the most reactionary clergy, around the major figure of Yohann Kronshtadtsky. Preferring isolationism to any Slavophile sentiment, the Black Hundreds still hoped to direct Russian imperialism toward the south. 2 The second party was the Union of the Russian People (Soyuz russkogo naroda), an eclectic mix of small business owners, nobles, soldiers, and members of the clergy. Initially, the Union had the support of the tsar, the military, and some senior officials, who were hoping to sustain a grand, proregime movement. But at the urging of its leader, Markov II, 3 the Union distanced itself from the upper classes and promoted a populist narrative, founded on anti-liberal and anti-Semitic rhetoric, organized some terrorist actions, and supported the pogroms of the Black Hundreds. 4 The Union swiftly became the best-organized movement on the right and the one best represented in the Russian provinces (with more than 1,000 sections and 200,000–300,000 members 5), which it largely owed to the publication of propaganda brochures and the newspaper Russkoe znamya. In 1907, various right-wing organizations such as the Monarchist party and the Union of Landowners recognized it as their mediator with the authorities and put it in charge of unifying the Russian right. The Union entered into crisis mode and in 1910 split among Markov II, who maintained a party under the same name; the physicist Alexander I. Dubrovin, who founded the True Union of the Russian People; and Vladimir M. Purishkevich, who became the leader of the Russian National Union of the Archangel Gabriel. The third group was the Russian Folk Union (Soyuz russkikh lyudei), founded in Moscow by Sergei F. Sharapov. Its members included Prince Vladimir P. Meshchersky, Count Pavel Sheremetev, the son of Slavophile philosopher Aleksei Khomiakov, Dmitri Khomiakov, and some aristocrats and university professors. Less populist than the two previous movements, this Union wanted to develop a unifying ideology for nobility, clergy, and merchants—symbols of traditional Russianness—against a “cosmopolitan” intelligentsia and bourgeoisie. Its ideal was not the reign of Alexander III, but the period of Muscovite principalities. It thought that Russian autocracy

4

Marlene Laruelle

had to be popular and patriarchal, but not bureaucratic, and that links between the people and the tsar must be reinforced by the renewal of a popular assembly, the zemskii sobor. The Union was not a political party and limited itself to organizing meetings and producing Slavophile and Orthodox publications in favor of the regime. Finally, the Russian Monarchist Party (Russkaya monarkhicheskaya partiya), founded by Vladimir A. Grigmunt, called for the maximum centralization of power around a strong bureaucracy and an authoritarian tsar on the model of Alexander III. The party sought to be a lobbying group, in order to avoid the passivity of the state apparatus, and hesitated to descend into the political arena. The reforms it wanted would not modernize or liberalize the empire, but instead restructure it and Russify the national minorities. Grigmunt’s rhetoric had little effect outside a few small circles in Moscow, and his group declined rapidly after his death in 1907. However, he personally influenced the Black Hundreds’ ideology. All of these far-right movements were eliminated during the Revolution of October 1917 and none of them can claim to have introduced or spread in Russia the major ideological principles of the contemporaneous European far right. With the exception of anti-Semitism, the Russian and European extreme rights shared little in the way of doctrine or relationships between their respective leaders. Contacts between Russian and European far-right groups did not really begin until the interwar period, when Russian émigrés in Europe and the Far East entered into direct dialogue with their fascist counterparts. Two major trends can be distinguished: the patriotic National Bolsheviks who supported Soviet Russia, but also admired the fascist revolutionary atmosphere, its rituals and slogans; and those who rallied in direct support of the Nazi regime in Germany, convinced that it was the only force capable of eliminating communism and restoring imperial Russia. This first group took shape in the early 1920s when the partisans of the Smenoverkhovstvo (Changing of Landmarks) 6—among them Aleksei Tolstoy, who would go back to Soviet Russia in 1923, and Nikolai Ustryalov, an émigré to Kharbin, Manchuria—invited Russian émigrés to come to terms with the regime and collaborate with it. They embodied a new interpretation of the Soviet regime developed while abroad, with the Revolution presented as a constructive force. They sought to emphasize nationalism, with Bolshevism as its means, and alignment with the Soviet regime. Communism would only be a mere episode in the history of a great, indivisible, and—above all— eternal Russia. By combining traditional Russian patriotism, a recognition of Bolshevism, and fascist ideology, the cult of the superman, vitalism, and the celebration of military strength, Ustryalov laid down the foundations for a powerful trend, that of National Bolshevism. His contributions facilitated an historical continuity in terms of doctrines between pre-revolutionary fascist

Dangerous Liaisons

5

thinkers such as Vladimir Purishkevich and the German founders of the Conservative Revolution, especially Ernst Niekisch (1889–1967). 7 More narrow interactions took place between some White émigré milieus and Nazi circles. Völkish German nationalism and Russian White movements shared many doctrinal beliefs, especially related to Jewish conspiracy, and strengthened their mutual interactions in Ukraine and the Baltics during the Civil War (1918–1921) and then in Germany. 8 Even if their relationships were conflictual, as many Nazi theories denounced Slavs as an inferior race, and the White Russian émigrés were often of Slavophile sensibility, both were ready to overcome their doctrinal differences to serve a tactical goal, that of defeating Soviet Russia and its egalitarian ideology. The so-called National Alliance of Russian Solidarists, known by the Russian abbreviation NTS, was founded in 1930 by a group of young White émigrés based in Belgrade and largely infiltrated by the Soviet intelligence services, the NKVD. The NTS wanted to fight the Soviet regime using a political program called solidarism, which was directly inspired by Italian fascism. The knowledge of the Russian émigrés served the Nazis as they prepared for their 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union and attempted to rally disgruntled Soviets to the Nazi regime, especially in Ukraine but also with some aspirations toward the Caucasus and Central Asia. 9 NTS supported the tactical alliance with Nazi Germany by creating several Russian “national liberation brigades” fighting alongside the Wehrmarcht on the Eastern Front. The NTS also got the support of Andrei Vlasov, the Red Army general who defected in 1942 and tried to launch a Russian Liberation Army in the Nazi-occupied territories of the Soviet Union. It is more challenging to retrace the arc of topics near and dear to far-right thinking in the Soviet Union itself, especially to assess their degree of interaction with their European counterparts. With the exception of Soviet antiSemitism, which has been studied in depth but which has no known interaction with the European far right, the only documented component at our disposition has been studies tracking the emergence of neo-pagan and Aryan narratives in Soviet intellectual life. For example, it is known that Stalin took a keen interest in research on Slavic antiquity, as he hoped that such study would confirm the primeval communism of the Russians. Some scholars, including the academician and former head of the Archaeology Institute, Boris A. Rybakov, promoted a vision of the pre-Christian religion that favored a communitarian conception of society and that denounced Christianity for accepting justifications for class division. 10 The Soviet authorities validated the particularly important role Rybakov played in this rehabilitation of ancient paganism insofar as in 1949, he received the Stalin prize for his book Craft Industry in Ancient Russia (Remeslo drevnei Rusi). In the 1960s, the renewal of atheist activism organized by Nikita Khrushchev also presupposed a positive reinterpretation of certain pre-Christian or

6

Marlene Laruelle

pre-Islamic traditions. According to Viktor Shnirelman, the first manifesto of Russian neo-paganism was the letter “Critical remarks by a Russian man on the patriotic newspaper Veche” (“Kriticheskie zametki russkogo cheloveka o patrioticheskom zhurnale Veche”), published anonymously in 1973 by Valerii Emelianov, an expert on the Middle East who was close to Khrushchev. In this text, Emelianov explicitly expressed the idea that Christianity was nothing more than the expression of Jewish domination and that it only served the interests of Zionism. A few years later, in 1978, Valerii Skurlatov, a trained physicist and a researcher at the Institute of Scientific Information in the Human Sciences (INION, Moscow) published one of the first articles on Russians’ Aryan identity. Skurlatov seems to have acquired his knowledge of the Germanic discourses of the interwar years while doing his doctoral research. 11 However, even if this neo-paganism built on links with its Western counterparts in the 1990s–2000s, it would be an exaggeration to see in its emergence during Soviet time a direct product of European influences. There is insufficient information to demonstrate the accessibility of European farright ideological publications to Soviet scholars and intellectuals. Some could access the forbidden books collections at the Lenin Library Spetskhran (special fund) for their professional needs (e.g., historians of Nazism, translators of Western European languages), but access was highly restricted. Furthermore, since the 1960s, the so-called Russian Party, an informal group of Russian civil servants with nationalist convictions around the Central Committee of the Komsomol, the USSR Writers’ Union, and the Russian Society for the Defense of Monuments (VOOPIIK) discretely rehabilitated the Black Hundreds and their fascist heirs. 12 The official Soviet anti-Zionism, which was highly disparaged in the Soviet propaganda of the time, also contributed to reintegrate progressively some anti-Semitic narratives and their heroes. These topics became popular among certain “initiated” circles but with very limited interaction with the West. The first direct affiliations with the European far right are identifiable in the Yuzhinsky Circle, the dissident group that emerged in the 1950s around Yuri Mamleev, Evgenii Golovin, Geydar Dzhemal, and Vladimir Stepanov, and was maintained underground until the perestroika years. Alexander Dugin joined it in the early 1980s. The Yuzhinsky Circle was the first attempt among dissidents to bypass the traditional dividing line between Westernizers/liberals and nationalists/monarchists/Stalinists. At first the Circle believed that its reply to the Soviet regime would not be found in a rival political ideology, but in metaphysics and the search for another level of reality. This trend became more powerful in the 1960s and 1970s and was encapsulated by the enthusiasm for Oriental religions and mysticisms, Blavatsky and Rerikh, Shamanism and Tibetan mythology, UFO-logy and so on—similar in many ways to the New Age wave that swept Western coun-

Dangerous Liaisons

7

tries around the same time. 13 In this atmosphere, the Circle distinguished itself through its preference for European mysticism, medieval esotericism, and Western authors embodying German Romanticism and vitalist ideologies. This initial path also allowed for the discovery and assimilation of the main advocates of traditionalism, especially René Guénon, and their political heirs who had fed the German Conservative Revolution in the 1920s, Ahnenerbe-inspired Nazi occultism, and postwar fascist doctrines in Italy and Latin America—with Julius Evola being the key figure making the link here between traditionalism and Nazism. In interviews and memoirs, Mamleev, Golovin, Dzhemal, and Dugin acknowledged their violent rejection, at that time, of Soviet reality and official ideology. Discovering powerful counternarratives, seen as taboo in Soviet society, could only be attractive to spirits in search of nonconformism and provocation. Their spiritual quest in response to the Soviet regime progressively transformed into the assimilation and promotion of new political doctrines. In three decades the Yuzhinsky Circle evolved from Mamleev’s encounter with metaphysics to Golovin’s discovery of the political side of traditionalism, to Dugin’s revisiting of Nazi mysticism and attempts to transform it into an engine for concrete political activism. 14 The last attempt to reintroduce far-right theories into Soviet culture was done by Pamyat, the “cadre school” of Russian nationalism, an extraordinary incubator of all radical ideologies. In 1980, Pamyat was registered as an association of bibliophiles with the Ministry of Aviation Industry, organizing historical tours at sites related to Russia’s major military victories and evening events devoted to writers, historians, and painters of a nationalist persuasion. With Dmitri Vasiliev’s ascendance to the top of the organization in 1984, Pamyat went from being a cultural organization to an engine of antiSemitic propaganda, obsessed with the “fight against Zionism.” 15 From 1987, the association fractured into multiple competing groups, all of which claimed the legitimacy acquired during the movement’s first years. Dugin joined Vasiliev’s faction, and even had a seat on its Central Council for several months. Nonetheless, he was quickly expelled from Pamyat, along with Dzhemal, for “Satanism” and “anti-Soviet intentions” 16 at a time when the association had largely reconciled with the then-imperiled regime. The accusation of Satanism probably refers to Dugin’s Nazi symbolism and the Black Order rituals of the Yuzhinsky Circle. Dugin joined Pamyat at the same time that Nazi symbols first appeared within the Russian nationalist movement. 17 But attempts to propagate Nazi occultism were doomed to fail. At the time, Russian nationalism defined itself chiefly either as a Russian path distinctive from the West or as a way to defend the Soviet Union against the German enemy, thereby marginalizing all those who were promoting pan-European ideologies.

8

Marlene Laruelle

DUGIN ADAPTS EUROPEAN FAR-RIGHT THEORIES With Dugin’s emergence on the Russian intellectual scene, direct doctrinal borrowing and personal interactions with the European far right structured and became institutionalized. As Anton Shekhovtsov rightly states in the second chapter of this volume, Dugin speaks the same language, both literally and intellectually, as some strands of the European far right, especially the French New Right. Dugin accesses texts in their original versions and displays a tangible ability to provide a logical order (at least in superficial terms) to an eclectic pool of knowledge. His aptitude at crossing disciplinary boundaries allows him to divert criticism from his peers by claiming to belong to another tier of knowledge. He partially succeeded in gaining intellectual respectability—at least until he was sacked from Moscow State University in 2014 for making extreme statements during the Ukrainian crisis— and exhibits a chameleon-like ability to speak to both the political establishment as well as counter-cultural circles. 18 In his attempt to rehabilitate fascism in Russia, Dugin first had to confront the memory of World War II and its dominant interpretation as a “great patriotic war” against a German enemy. 19 One of his first arguments was thus geopolitical: part of the fascist tradition, forgotten until recently, looks favorably toward Russia. In 1992, Dugin’s close friend Geydar Dzhemal devoted an article in Alexander Prokhanov’s weekly Den’ to Jean-François Thiriart, a Belgian Nazi collaborator turned extreme right-winger in the Cold War period who supported the establishment of a Euro-Soviet empire. Using Thiriart as an example of a pro-Russian fascist tradition, Dzhemal explicitly formulated the need for Russia to reshape its relationship with European right-wing traditions and understand that a large part of them favored an alliance with Russia. Dzhemal denounced “official Soviet anti-fascism [which] helped largely at mythologizing the Western right-wing in the eyes of Russians.” 20 Both he and Dugin hoped this mythology would disappear with the collapse of Soviet ideology and open new avenues for collaboration with Western far right. Dugin’s main theoretical effort in restoring fascism as a legitimate political order has proceeded with three articulated expressions. One line of argument, which Dugin dropped very quickly, equates the fascist regime with the communist one and thus implies that the former is no worse than the latter. In his early texts in 1991–1992, Dugin denounced the Allies’ postwar discrediting of the terms “fascism” and “National Socialism.” Supporters of liberalism and communism alike “demonized alternative political-economic approaches and associated the entirety of fascism with crime, violence, terror, and genocide.” 21 In 1994, Dugin refined his reasoning to respond to national and international critics on the so-called red-brown threat endangering President Boris Yeltsin’s regime. He recalled, “Russian history cannot advance

Dangerous Liaisons

9

any serious argument to prove the ‘criminal’ character of Russian Fascism, as it never existed. Russian Communism was marked by gigantic repressions. Russian liberalism carries blood of the assaulted parliament. Russian Fascism has nothing for which to be reproached.” 22 However, this equation of fascism and communism quickly disappeared from Dugin’s work as it was too dissonant with Russia’s popular memory of World War II and the progressive emergence of Soviet nostalgia. The second line of argument dissociates fascism as a political theory from its historical realization, particularly Nazism’s racist policies. Dugin therefore exempts fascism in general from “German exceptionalism.” Neither Franco nor Salazar nor even Mussolini—at least before Hitler got the better of his Italian counterpart—were promoting policies to annihilate parts of the population in the name of racial persuasions. For Dugin, “Fascism has nothing in common with an extreme nationalism, a nationalist radicalism at the border of chauvinism and racial hate. Despite the existence of a racist and chauvinistic aspect in German National-Socialism, this element was not defining the core of the ideology.” 23 According to him, the Ahnenerbe, the main institution in charge of elaborating Nazi esoteric myths and rituals, was the model of this nonracist Nazism. It welcomed cooperation with non-European peoples from Asia and the Middle East, who were considered part of a shared Aryan genealogy. 24 Only the Atlanticist line of Nazism advanced by Bavarian circles and by Hitler himself promoted theories of racial destruction, while the Russophile Eurasianist line, led by Reinhard Heydrich, was open to non-European peoples. 25 Despite these attempts to “excuse” fascism from its racist elements, Dugin is certainly not indifferent to racial theories. Like Julius Evola, one of his main sources of inspiration, he believes in the existence of spiritual races that separate peoples into two major categories: subject races and object races. 26 It goes without saying that the choice of terminology—subject and object, borrowed from twentieth-century philosophy—is a way of implying superiority and inferiority without the consequent legal condemnation. The third line of argument anchors fascism into a discursive framework, nationalism, that enjoys more positive connotations in some parts of Russian public opinion. To do this, Dugin plays with words and blurs terms to make them interchangeable. According to him, the concept of National Socialism sounds negative, even though the two words that comprise it are positive. Therefore National Socialism should be understood as no more than “German socialism” because fascism is a proletarian regime “whose central figures are the peasant, worker, and soldier.” 27 The Franco regime, for instance, would not qualify as fascist because it promoted a “national capitalism” that is actually the enemy of authentic fascism. Similarly, “Russian Fascism can be described as Russian socialism.” 28 While Marxism-Leninism was lost in a sterile doctrinal rigidity, according to Dugin, Russian National

10

Marlene Laruelle

Socialism would be “more peasant than proletariat, more communitarian and cooperative than statist, more regional than centralized.” 29 From Dugin’s perspective, fascism would thus be no more than a “leftist nationalism.” Dugin deploys the words “nationalism” and “fascism” interchangeably. He starts his article “Leftist Nationalism” by stating, “The twentieth century knows only three forms of ideology: liberalism, communism, and nationalism.” 30 In “Fascism without Borders and Red,” he included a very similar sentence but replaced nationalism with fascism. He proclaimed that “Russia [had] passed two ideological moments, the communist and the liberal. . . . Fascism is the remaining one.” 31 However, to develop a more solid narrative that would make fascism adequate to Russian political traditions, Dugin has gone further. He has invested himself in revamping the tradition of the German Conservative Revolution in order to foster fascism’s reintegration into the realm of the “politically correct” by rebuilding its intellectual genealogy. In the genealogy of the Conservative Revolution, Dugin includes German National Socialism; the first years of Mussolini’s regime; the Falange movement in Spain; the Iron Guard in Romania; and even Iran’s Shiia revolution. 32 He added to this list Israel, which he regards as a unique example because it was founded on the restoration of traditional ancestral land, both in religious and ethnic terms. For his German inspiration, Dugin systematically refers to the main representatives of this Conservative Revolution: the Jungkonservativen, with Arthur Moeller van der Bruck, Oswald Spengler, Carl Schmitt, Othmar Spann, and Wilhelm Stapel; the National Revolutionaries, mostly Ernst Jünger and Franz Schauwecker; and the German National Bolsheviks around Heinrich Laufenberg and Ernst Niekisch. Dugin points out the tensions between these movements and Hitlerism and emphasizes several contradictory points: Hitlerism was further to the right than the Conservative Revolution, Hitler was a Russophobe while the others were Russophile, and Hitler was a racist while the others were non-xenophobic nationalists. To rehabilitate fascism, Dugin thus needs to dissociate the Nazi regime from the Conservative Revolution. However, he largely fails at convincingly articulating this crucial distinction. For example, he affirms that “Fascism is the Third Way,” 33 that “the most complete and total (although also quite orthodox) incarnation of the Third Way was German National Socialism,” 34 and that “National Socialism undoubtedly took and realized the impulsion coming from the conservative revolutionary ideology.” 35 In this usage, the three terms—Nazism, Fascism, and Conservative Revolution—largely overlap, and Dugin’s demonstration of their differences and contradictions fails to be conclusive. Last, but not least, although Dugin seeks to promote a fascism that diverges from Nazism, his major philosophical references have

Dangerous Liaisons

11

all directly inspired the Nazi regime: Julius Evola, Carl Schmitt, and Martin Heidegger. 36 In 2009, Dugin published a new book, The Fourth Political Theory, that elaborated a new phase of his political thought. It was quickly translated into several languages and received some media coverage, including among Western far-right groups. 37 In an interview in 2014, Dugin definitively renounced what he calls the second and third political theories (communism and nationalism/fascism, the first one being liberalism) and stated that the fourth proposes a full break with the first three because it no longer seeks to accommodate modernity, but instead denies it in its entirety. Whereas in the early 1990s, he claimed that Russia had tested liberalism and communism and had to turn to a third choice, fascism/nationalism, twenty years later he proclaimed, “Liberalism, communism, and fascism—ideologies of the twentieth century—are finished. That is why it is necessary to create a new, fourth political theory.” 38 But despite pedantic declarations of novelty, Dugin had merely rearranged the doctrines in which he has always believed. He states that of all forms of conservatism, the most interesting is that of the Conservative Revolution, which he defines by repeating the formula of Arthur Moeller van den Bruck, “Conservatives who have preceded us have sought to stop the revolution, we must take the lead of it.” 39 The book notes that National Bolshevism and Eurasianism are the two ideologies that are closest to the fourth political theory. Dugin himself, therefore, offers the keys necessary to decipher the falsification of his “novelty.” He recognizes that the drama of the fourth political theory is “that it was hidden behind the third (Nazism and fascism). Its tragedy is to have been overshadowed historically by the third, and being allied with it, given the impossibility to conduct an ideological war on three fronts (against liberalism, communism, and fascism/Nazism).” 40 Nothing thus changed, except the window dressing, and Dugin today, as twenty-five years ago, continues to give voice to what is a fascism à la russe. DUGIN’S NETWORKS IN EUROPE AND BEYOND Dugin has built personal contacts with the European far right in two stages: a core historical period between 1989–1990 and 1994, during which time Dugin made several trips to France, Italy, and Spain, and a second, sparser period that began in the second half of the 2000s, during which time he built relationships with Turkish, Hungarian, and Greek colleagues. Dugin’s first contacts in France, Italy, and Spain were crucial and significantly shaped his thinking. In 1989–1990, Dugin was a largely unknown, young Russian “philosopher,” who was received by the main representatives of the European New Right because he was recommended by émigré circles. The second

12

Marlene Laruelle

generation of contacts in Turkey, Hungary, and Greece is totally different because Dugin was then at the peak of his international fame, represented (incorrectly) in the European media as one of the gurus behind Putin’s regime, an eminence grise whose good graces were needed for those looking for the Kremlin’s backing. The initial contacts in France, Italy, and Spain are decisive because they introduced Dugin to the various circles of the Western European far right, especially to pan-European movements. He thus discovered the theories of the New Right promoted by Alain de Benoist, founder of GRECE (Research and Study Group for European Civilization) and the magazine Nouvelle École. 41 De Benoist has deepened far-right thinking by borrowing from Third World theories and replacing outdated, taboo biological racism with cultural differentialism. 42 An even greater influence on Dugin has been the Belgian Robert Steuckers, another GRECE alumnus. He introduced Dugin to the major authors of German geopolitics and to contemporary conspiracy theories. Steuckers also rallied Dugin to National Bolshevism. The National Bolshevik Party that Dugin and Edouard Limonov created in Russia in 1993 43 thus joined the European Liberation Front—originally inspired by Francis Parker Yockey and Otto Strasser, and reanimated in the early 1990s by movements such as Nouvelle Resistance, with Christian Bouchet in France. Dugin also drew inspiration from meeting Jean-François Thiriart, who supported a unified Euro-Soviet space and led a small European community party. 44 Dugin established connections not only with the New Right but with circles expressing open nostalgia for Nazism, such as the Thule group in Spain, a direct descendant of the 1960s neo-Nazi group CEDADE. 45 The Thule theories of esoteric Nazism, especially the Hyperborea theme—the mythical Nordic continent and Aryan cradle—inspired Dugin’s first publication, Giperboreya. Although Dugin’s influence in Spain is limited, as demonstrated in Nicolas Lebourg’s chapter, he is “catching up” by building relationships in the Lusophone world. In 2006 and then in 2012, some of Dugin’s books were translated into Portuguese and released by Finis Mundi, the publishing house of the Portuguese New Right run by Flavio Gonçalves. It is associated with the Lisbon-based Portuguese Institute of Higher Studies in Geopolitics and Auxiliary Sciences, which includes Bouchet and Mutti on its editorial board. Finis Mundi published books written by former Portuguese dictator António de Oliveira Salazar; Ramon Bau, a former secretary general of CEDADE; and Jordi Garriga, a leading figure in the Spanish New Right. 46 In 2011, Dugin focused on developing contacts within Brazil, including an online debate with the journalist and traditionalist thinker Olavo de Carvalho, a disciple of René Guénon and Frithjof Schuon, close to some Islamist movements, and currently in exile in the United States. 47 Dugin traveled to Brazil in early 2013, visiting several universities where he met with Heidegger-

Dangerous Liaisons

13

focused circles and was introduced to the thoughts of Vicente Ferreira da Silva. 48 In one of his first trips to Europe, in 1993, Dugin also met Leon Degrelle just before the latter passed away. Degrelle, founder of the Fascist Walloon party Rexism that supported total collaboration with the Nazis, became Volksführer of Wallonia and the leader of the Walloon contingent of the Waffen SS, which was sent to the Eastern Front. 49 Dugin’s Italian contacts took shape around the figure of fascist thinker Claudio Mutti, who allowed Dugin to add three important “keystones” to his doctrinal landscape. First, Mutti is the direct intellectual heir of Julius Evola and his principle of spiritual races, a theory that deeply molded Dugin’s perception of the world and his political commitment to fascism. 50 Second, Mutti is linked to the Ordine Nuovo and Avanguardia Nazionale circles headed by Stefano Delle Chiaie, responsible for a large part of the Strategy of Tension that rattled Italy in the 1960s with several extreme-right terrorist attacks, among them the Piazza Fontana. 51 Third, even if Dugin did not convert to Islam, as Mutti did, but remained loyal to the Old Believer branch of the Orthodox Church, he has developed a relatively similar pro-Islamic ideology. On the question of its relations with Islam, the European far right stands divided. Groups related to the identitarians, which insist on the need to protect a “white” European identity, are strongly Islamophobe and thus in tune with broader European public opinion and political parties such as the French National Front. Movements more directly inspired by the New Right are more Islamophile, as they view the Islamic world as the only currently available, effective resistance to U.S. supremacy and liberalism. 52 Dugin falls squarely into this second category with a sophisticated Islamophile discourse, but clearly separates “good” Islam (that of the Iranian revolution and Shiism) from “bad” Islam (Wahhabi, financed by the Arab allies of the United States). However, by also carrying the flag of the esoteric Nazi tradition, with its Aryan and Hyperborean motives, Dugin shares many components of the identitarian narrative and of its nativism. He thus can be considered as advancing a “white” identity for Europe. Another ambiguity in Dugin’s thinking, which partly explains his success in developing international networks in Europe, is his combination of classic pan-European theses of post-Nazi far-right groups and Eurasianist doctrine. Dugin’s international allies thus can pick and choose where they agree with him. Some insist on how Dugin brilliantly demonstrates that Russia belongs to European civilization and its status as Europe’s last illiberal great power. They reject Eurasianism per se, considering that non-Aryan peoples and especially the Muslim population have no place in the future of the continent. Others, especially those coming from the National Bolshevik tradition, refer to Dugin’s Eurasianist theories and to Russia’s position straddling many

14

Marlene Laruelle

spaces, making it the only country capable of speaking simultaneously to Europe, Asia, and the Islamic world. This ambiguity is particularly visible in Dugin’s influence among the Hungarian far right. At first the main Hungarian far-right party, Jobbik, manipulated classic anti-Semitic and anti-Roma themes. Then in 2010, in order to create its own ideological niche to distinguish it from Viktor Orbán’s ruling Fidesz, the party adopted a so-called Turanian ideology, which calls for the unification of the Turkic-Mongolian peoples. 53 Jobbik emphasized the Eastern origin of the Hungarian people, their nomadic past, the prestige of the Scythians and the Huns under Attila, and their Finno-Ugric language. Turanism is not new to Hungary; the ideology had supporters after World War I among nationalist circles admiring the Italian fascist experience and the honeymoon between Turkey and Nazi Germany. 54 This distancing from Western civilization and current European construction in favor of an Eastern identity formulated through an innovative update of a faded ideology resonates with the Eurasianist camp. However, Dugin’s never valued the Turkic world as an alternate to European civilization. 55 Jobbik’s belief that presentday Europe embodies an Aryan decadence that can be annihilated only by a civilization coming from the Steppe world would correspond well to the beliefs of the founding fathers of Eurasianism in the 1920–1930s; but it has nothing in common with Dugin’s doctrinal principles. In this brief overview of Dugin’s European collection of allies one must note the paradoxical absence of Germany. While German thought from the early twentieth century and the interwar years comprises one of the core tenets of Dugin’s doctrine, he has few allies in Germany, compared with his deep interactions with the Francophone world and the Mediterranean. His German acquaintances have only very recently been cultivated, namely with the journal Zuerst!, launched in 2010 as the successor of the neo-Nazi Nation and Europa to promote right-wing thought in Germany. Zuerst! prominent journalist Manuel Ochesenreiter, associated with the New Resistance movement and the website Open Revolt, has interviewed Dugin several times. 56 Thanks to this network, Dugin was invited to join the March 2015 conference of far-right thinkers and activists organized by Dietmar Munier, who owns the two biggest far-right publishing houses in Germany, Arndt and Lesen and Schenken. Although Dugin has read and sometimes cited Armin Mohler (1920–2003), a disciple of Ernst Jünger and supporter of the Conservative Revolution, the two men do not appear to have met. The countries of Scandinavia are also largely absent of Dugin’s European panorama. Dugin visited Finland in spring 2014 as a member of Prokhanov’s Izborsky Club 57 at the invitation of Johan Bäckman, a controversial human rights activist known for his pro-Russian positions. 58 Swedish identity groups such as Motpol have republished Dugin’s writings on the fourth political theory, 59 but personal contacts are limited. As for the Anglo-Saxon

Dangerous Liaisons

15

world, it has a moderate presence. Dugin maintains a small group of supporters in the United Kingdom, centered around the publishing house of the British New Right, Arktos, which specializes in English translations of the works of Alain de Benoist, Guillaume Faye, Julius Evola, and Dugin. Arktos was born from the merger between Integral Tradition Publishing (ITP) and NFSE-Media AB, a company linked to Swedish neo-Nazi Lennart Berg. 60 The publisher is close to Troy Southgate, a national anarchist activist who heads the British New Right. Relationships with other European countries are narrower. In Poland Dugin enjoys the support of Mateusz Piskorski, a former MP and head of the small think tank European Center for Geopolitical Analysis. Piskorski has campaigned for years within the Self-Defense (Samoobrona) party, led by Andrzej Lepper and known for its neo-Nazi, Aryan, and neo-pagan stances. 61 Self-Defense and Piskorski are close to Dugin’s Eurasianist Movement 62 and support Russia-friendly regimes in the near abroad. In Greece, Dugin’s networks have been able to reach both the extreme-right and extreme-left sides of the political spectrum. Nikos Kotzias, foreign minister in the Syriza government and known for having close ties with Russia since the 1980s, invited Dugin to give a lecture at the University of Piraeus in 2013. 63 But Dugin also collaborated with Golden Dawn, the neo-Nazi party that won eighteen seats in Greece’s parliament in 2012. Its leader, Nikos Michaloliakos, even received a letter of support from Dugin while in prison. 64 In Turkey, Dugin’s ephemerous media visibility in the mid-2000s declined rapidly and deteriorates again with the Ergenekon trial and Ankara’s reorientation toward the Middle East. Thanks to these carefully cultivated international contacts, Dugin is well positioned in rightist antiglobalization circles, which combine conventional themes of the right (the nation) with “leftist” themes (revolutionary and anticorporate discourse). The most famous of these networks is the Global Revolutionary Alliance. Three of its members—Open Revolt, Green Star, and New Resistance—have become adherents to Dugin’s thought and regularly publish his main texts in English for an American audience. In two phases, first in the beginning of the 1990s and then in the latter half of the 2000s, Dugin developed a unique international network that gives him even more visibility abroad than he has in Russia. This asymmetrical recognition has made him seem like he is bragging while abroad, as he boasts of being Putin’s shadow advisor. RUSSIA’S NEW FELLOW TRAVELERS Although Dugin is not Putin’s shadow advisor, his international prominence predates the emergence of Russia’s soft power in the 2000s and Moscow’s

16

Marlene Laruelle

establishment of an international outreach policy, and he could therefore pave the way in this search for new allies abroad. Putin’s Russia has adopted the old Soviet tradition of cultivating friendly movements in Europe and “fellow travelers” all over the world. However, developing privileged relationships with certain European countries or political parties is in no way specific to Russia. For decades the United States has “special relationships” and preferential ties with countries, influential organizations, and political groups that share Washington’s views. Contrary to Soviet times, Russia’s new allies are located more on the far right than on the far left of the political spectrum. The Political Capital Institute, a Hungarian think tank, accurately notes in a study of Russian connections to Europe that the only extreme-right parties hostile to Moscow are situated in countries that border Russia and have a long historical memory of conflict with their much-larger neighbor. For Finland, Latvia, and Romania, nationalism can only be anti-Russian. 65 In many other cases, pro-Russian voices are coming from the far right, but also, more moderately, from the new left, a sign of how ideological dividing lines have changed in Europe since the last decade. The Balkans: Russia’s Traditional Area of Influence Within greater Europe, the Balkan region has been an area of Russian influence since the nineteenth century, when Russia acted as the torchbearer for Orthodox peoples in their struggles for national liberation from Ottoman domination. 66 More recently in the 1990s, Russia’s position on the Yugoslav crisis and its support for Serbia fed Slavophile and pan-Orthodox feelings in Russia as much as in the Balkans. 67 In Serbia, rapprochement with the European Union (EU) in preparation for integration has not affected largely proRussian public opinion, which embraces Russia’s intransigent position on the Kosovo issue. Moscow also wants to have its say in the future of BosniaHerzegovina: it has developed ties with the Republika Srpska and supports Serbia’s position in opposing Bosnia’s bid to join the EU. In January 2015 for instance, Russia abstained from a United Nations Security Council vote on extending the EURFOR peacekeeping mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina because the document mentioned the country’s prospective accession to the EU. 68 Russia’s soft power also expresses itself in the economic realm. Russia is the largest foreign investor in Montenegro, and the company Russian Railways, headed by Putin ally Vladimir Yakunin, is refurbishing a 350kilometer stretch of track in Serbia, while Lukoil and Gazprom dominate the Serbian gas and fuel market. 69 Bulgaria was probably the first EU member where Moscow’s footprint was significant and unchallenged. Bulgaria’s public opinion traditionally displays high rates of Russophilia. 70 It is almost completely dependent on Russian natural gas and oil, and around 300,000 Russians have bought property

Dangerous Liaisons

17

in the country. 71 A pro-Russia party on the extreme right of the political spectrum formed as early as 2005: Ataka, led by Volen Siderov, advances a platform that is xenophobic, anti-Roma, anti-Semitic, Islamophobic, antiTurk, and anti-NATO. It is also critical of the terms of accession to the EU, closely aligned to the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, and in favor of a gas pipeline directly linking Bulgaria and Russia. 72 The party has experienced its electoral highs and lows, but on average ranks fourth in the Bulgarian political arena. Greece also is traditionally pro-Russia for reasons of historical proximity and Orthodox solidarity, most notably through the interest of the Moscow Patriarchate for Mount Athos, seen as a holy site for the Russian Church. Since the election of the far-left Syriza party in January 2015, these ties have strengthened. Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has refused to approve a new round of sanctions on Russia over the Ukrainian crisis, and he hopes to attract Russian investment in the Greek economy. 73 Pro-Kremlin “Orthodox businessman” Konstantin Malofeev appears to have contacted many members of Syriza, and one of the party’s political advisors, Nicolas Laos, has deep business ties to Russia. 74 To form a coalition government, Syriza had to partner with the far-right Independent Greeks party (ANEL), which offers a more moderate, yet still anti-immigration, stance than Golden Dawn. One of its leaders, Gavriil Avramidis, head of a movement called the Greek-Russian Alliance, is the driving force of ANEL’s pro-Russian stance. 75 ANEL head Panos Kammenos, defense minister in the Syriza government, has traveled regularly to Russia and works with the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies (RISI), a think tank close to Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service. 76 The situation is similar, if not even more pro-Russian, in Cyprus. Russia supported Greek Cyprus following the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974, and most important, the Cypriot economy is almost entirely dependent on Russia. The island is one of the main tourist destinations for Russians as well as their main offshore tax haven and money-laundering center. One-third to one-half of all bank deposits in Cyprus are of Russian origin. 77 Russian shareholders own a controlling stake in the national Bank of Cyprus, wielding significant influence over the island’s economy. 78 Central Europe: More Pro-Russia Than Expected In Central Europe, the Visegrad countries are divided in their attitude toward Russia. Although Poland stands proudly in the camp of those strongly opposed to Russia—and is aligned with the Baltic states—the other three countries are more measured and nuanced. Their pro-NATO postures from the 1990s and 2000s have weakened, and their economic ties to Russia are now pushing them to soften their positions.

18

Marlene Laruelle

Like in the Balkans, Russia’s soft power is concentrated in economic partnerships and investment strategies. In Slovakia, almost 100 percent of foreign energy imports originate in Russia, and 40 percent of Russian gas bound for Europe travels through Slovakian pipelines. Hungary is about 80 percent dependent on Russian gas and the Czech Republic about 60 percent. But gas dependency does not explain everything. The Czech Republic was the first EU country where Gazprom started directly selling gas through a local company. Russia is also influential in the Czech nuclear sector, and Lukoil’s high-level officials were able to gain important allies close to the presidential administration of Miloš Zeman. 79 In Slovakia, pan-Slavic narratives have been reinvigorated. Prime Minister Robert Fico has long used them to deepen Slovakian and Russian relations, and Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajcak, educated in Moscow, is close to Dmitri Rogozin and one of the staunchest opponents of sanctions against Russia. 80 Moreover, a portion of public opinion seems amenable to the conservative discourse of the Russian regime, and the far-right People’s Party-Our Slovakia (LSNS), led by Marian Kotleba, has emerged as a new Russophile force. 81 Hungary stands out for its vibrant pro-Russia policy, atypical for a country that has vivid memories of its socialist decades under Moscow’s stronghold, most notably the Soviet invasion in 1956, and which has long seen itself as a part of the West. However, the atmosphere changed with the global financial crisis of 2008. Russia now benefits from double support in Hungary: from Jobbik, which received 20 percent of the vote in the October 2014 elections, and from Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his Fidesz party, which has been in power since 2010. This new Russia-Hungary axis of convenience was reinforced with Putin’s visit to Budapest in February 2015. Jobbik has consistently advocated for a policy of openness to the East, considering that Europe’s political future depends on Russia’s illiberal model, and its economic future on ties to Russia, Asia, and some Middle Eastern countries. During a trip to Moscow in 2013, Jobbik’s leader, Gábor Vona, met with the Russian officials in charge of the economy, including Ivan Grachev, chairman of the Duma Committee for Energy, and Vasili Tarasiuk, deputy chairman of the Committee on Natural Resources and Utilization. 82 Jobbik also provocatively put forward the idea that Hungary, an EU country, could accede to a Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union. 83 Not only is Vona a longtime friend of Russia, but Jobbik MP Béla Kovács, the co-chair of the Russia-EU Inter-Parliamentary Working Group, is suspected of being a spy for Russia—he allegedly met covertly with Russian diplomats and made monthly visits to Moscow. In September 2014, the Hungarian public prosecutor asked the European Parliament to suspend Kovács’s MEP immunity so that he could be investigated. 84 The governing Fidesz party, in the form of Orbán himself, defends the political model of illiberal democracy and praises Russia, Turkey, China, and

Dangerous Liaisons

19

Singapore. According to him, Europe’s failure to predict or manage the 2008 crisis indicates that the European model lacks a future while “an Eastern wind is blowing in the world economy.” 85 Fidesz also has revived the classical themes of Hungarian nationalism and plays the irredentism card around the idea of Magna Hungaria. 86 Russia offers good economic opportunities for Hungary. Budapest was an enthusiastic supporter of the South Stream pipeline, which would have supplied gas to Europe while bypassing Ukraine, and said it will refuse to join the integrated European energy policy. The country will also have part of its nuclear sector refurbished by Russian companies. During the Ukrainian crisis, Hungary positioned itself more in favor of Russia, rejecting EU sanctions against Moscow and activating its small Hungarian-speaking minority in Transcarpathia, in Ukraine, against the central government in Kyiv. 87 Western Europe: France as Russia’s Main Outpost In Western Europe, France and Italy have been two of the main outposts of Russian influence, likely for a combination of reasons: traditional Russophilia linked to the dominant role of the Communist parties in French and Italian intellectual life, and a lack of historical conflicts or direct economic dependency on Russia. However, the situations of the pro-Russia groups differ significantly in the two countries. In Italy, Vladimir Putin has built close personal and family ties with Silvio Berlusconi and his business partners. The two men are known to share a jet-setting culture. Berlusconi companies and subsidiaries, including his Central Energy Italian Gas Holding, are regularly accused of benefitting from Russian largesse, and the Italian energy conglomerate works in close collaboration with Gazprom. Valentino Valentini, Berlusconi’s most important advisor on Russia, seems to play an important role in this alliance. 88 As shown in Giovanni Savino’s chapter, the Northern League, which advances an agenda of conservative moral values, has always displayed pro-Russia stances—as have several smaller Italian political groups with a neofascist stance—and provocatively asking for Russia to join the EU. It also has sided with the Moscow Patriarchate on many occasions related to the promotion of so-called traditional values. 89 Moscow does not have the same range of allies in France. Although some French economic circles close to Nicolas Sarkozy’s Union for a Popular Movement are major players on the Russian market in several critical sectors (the defense industry, investment funds, and communications), Russia does not have a Berlusconi equivalent to promote its interests in France. However, Moscow has hit pay dirt in the form of its support for the National Front (FN), which in a few years rose to receive the second-most votes of any party

20

Marlene Laruelle

in France, and several other figures on the radical right such as Philippe de Villiers. 90 Back in 2011, Marine Le Pen acknowledged admiring the Russian president and supporting Russia: “I can only be concerned when I see that our president [then Nicolas Sarkozy], at the instigation of the Americans, is turning his back on Russia. Following the Americans, the French media demonizes Russia.” 91 The FN insists on several positive components of the Russian regime: authoritarianism (the cult of the strong man), anti-American jockeying (the fight against U.S. unipolarity and NATO domination), defense of Christian values, rejection of gay marriage, criticism of the European Union, and support for a “Europe of Nations.” With Russia’s international condemnation after the Ukrainian crisis, Marine Le Pen has turned out even greater praise: “Mr. Putin is a patriot. He is attached to the sovereignty of his people. He is aware that we defend common values. These are the values of European civilization.” 92 She therefore calls for an “advanced strategic alliance” with Russia, 93 which should be embodied in a continental European axis running from Paris to Berlin to Moscow. Regarding the Ukrainian crisis, the FN totally subscribes to the Russian interpretation of events and has given very vocal support to Moscow’s position. 94 The party criticized the Euro-Maidan revolution, thinks that the EU “threw oil on the fire” by proposing an economic partnership with a country in which half the population looks to the East, states its preference for a federalization of Ukraine that would give a broad autonomy to the Russian-speaking regions, and supports Russian proposals for solving the Donbass conflict. 95 The FN has become increasingly active in its relations with Russia, including several trips by high-ranking leaders: Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, Marine’s niece and France’s youngest MP, traveled there in December 2012; Bruno Gollnisch, executive vice president of the FN and president of the European Alliance of National Movements (AEMN), went in May 2013; and Marine Le Pen and FN vice president Louis Aliot both went in June 2013. During a second trip in April 2014, Marine Le Pen was received at a high political level by the president of the Duma, Sergei Naryshkin, the head of the Duma’s Committee on Foreign Affairs, Aleksei Pushkov, and the deputy prime minister, Dmitri Rogozin. 96 Several Russophile figures surround the president of the FN and have enhanced the party’s orientation toward Russia. The most famous is Aymeric Chauprade, an FN international advisor and European deputy who is close to Konstantin Malofeev. Next comes Xavier Moreau, a former student of SaintCyr, France’s foremost military academy, and a former paratrooper, who directs a Moscow-based consulting company, Sokol, and seems to play a central role in forming contracts between FN-friendly business circles and their Russian counterparts. Fabrice Sorlin, head of Dies Irae, a fundamentalist Catholic movement, leads the France-Europe Russia Alliance (AAFER).

Dangerous Liaisons

21

The FN also cultivates relations with Russian émigré circles and institutions representing Russia in France. The FN’s two MPs, Marion Maréchal-Le Pen and Gilbert Collard, are both members of a France-Russian friendship group. Marine Le Pen seems to have frequently met in private with the Russian ambassador to France, Alexander Orlov. Moreover, several FN officials have attended debates organized by Natalia Narochnitskaya, a high priestess of political Orthodoxy since the 1990s and now president of the Paris-based Institute for Democracy and Cooperation. 97 Russia has found less success in the United Kingdom, where political relations have been frayed since London began to host numerous oligarchs fleeing the Putin regime. Only the former chairman of the far-right British National Party, Nick Griffin, is known for his pro-Russian stances and his support of Crimea’s annexation. 98 Some contacts have been established in Austria with the Austria Freedom Party (FPÖ), whose leader, Heinz-Christian Strachen, visited Moscow and denounced sanctions against Russia, 99 and some members of the Flemish party Vlaams Belang in Belgium. In Germany, Russia was accustomed to support from the so-called Putin-Versteher (Putin sympathizers), mostly CEOs doing business with Russia and personalities such as former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who chairs the board of Gazprom-Nord Stream. 100 These alliances weakened during the Ukrainian crisis, given Chancellor Angela Merkel’s leading role in condemning Russia. But some new friends emerged among Die Linke, a powerful post-communist party in the former East Germany. 101 RUSSIA’S CALIBRATED TOOLS Today Russia is successfully manipulating the asymmetrical tools of soft power and has joined up with new allies that no longer represent the same ideological values as those from the Soviet years. The reasons for this honeymoon between Russia and European far-right circles are primarily ideological. Both seek allies against the mainstream and identify themselves as outsiders challenging the “center,” or what they often name “the system.” Their enemies are clearly identified: EU institutions, liberalism in terms of moral values, individualism, and the “loose consensus” of parliamentary democracy. Moscow succeeded, in a matter of mere years, in conflating Russophilia and Euroskepticism as two sides of the same coin, positioning Russia as Brussels’ opposite. Moscow has revived belief in a strong state and condemns “hypocritical” liberal elites at home; it promotes a realpolitik abroad and has the capacity and audacity to name its enemies; it posits the supreme sovereignty of the state in the international arena; it reaffirms Christian morals and “authentic” European values. Russia also has managed to be chameleon-like, adjusting its stances on divisive topics. It is

22

Marlene Laruelle

celebrated for its Eurasian values in Turkey, for its belonging to BRICS in Hungary, for its Orthodox values in Greece and the Balkans, for its “white” European identity in far-right discourses, and for its anti-NATO positioning among some European leftist parties. Russia draws on other attributes as well. In economic terms, it has invested generously in its partner countries, especially in Central and Eastern Europe. Members of Putin’s inner circle are close to many major European figures (Schroder and Berlusconi come to mind first) and the Russian presidential administration now appears ready to openly fund some far-right parties. The most striking example involves two loans obtained by the French National Front: €9 million from the First Czech Russian Bank (FCRB), which is close to Alexander Babakov, Putin’s advisor on cooperation with Russian organizations overseas, 102 and €2 million for a personal loan to JeanMarie Le Pen from a Cyprus-based company, Veronisa Holdings, which is owned by Yuri Kudimov, a Russian banker and former KGB agent. According to the French investigative newspaper Mediapart, these loans are only the tip of the iceberg of a Russian credit worth more than €40 million to finance the 2017 presidential campaign of Marine Le Pen. 103 The deterioration of Russia’s economic situation since fall 2014, mainly the result of plummeting oil prices, exacerbated by the effects of sanctions and weakening economic fundamentals, could drastically reduce Russia’s ability to buy new friends. However, it would be mistaken to think that support for Moscow is all about money; ideological convictions are at the forefront. The Kremlin has also taken new initiatives to demonstrate its freshly acquired soft-power skills. The first involves NGO diplomacy that promotes Russian interests in terms of election monitoring, as Anton Shekhovtsov analyzes in the final chapter of this volume, as well as cultural influence. Invitations to Moscow with honors are regularly extended to coveted European figures. In November 2013, Nick Griffin, the head of New Force Roberto Fiore, and Ilias P. Kasidiaris, the spokesperson for Golden Dawn, were simultaneously invited for a conference in Moscow. In October 2014, Jobbik and Golden Dawn were invited to St. Petersburg for a forum on developing “a new national doctrine for Russia and Europe.” 104 In June 2014, another important meeting was organized in Vienna, Austria, by “Orthodox businessman” Konstantin Malofeev. 105 The so-called secret meeting celebrating the 200th anniversary of Metternich’s Holy Alliance brought together the A-list of the European far right with the hope of developing a pan-European strategy. It included Dugin, the well-known nationalist painter Ilya Glazunov, and the leaders of several European far-right and monarchist groups: Americ Chaupadre, Marine Le Pen’s right-hand man in the National Front; Prince Sixtus Henry of Bourbon-Parma, leader of the Catholic-monarchist Carlist movement in Spain; Heinz-Christian Strache, chairman of the Austrian Freedom Party; Viennese politician Johann Herzog; Volen Siderov, chairman and

Dangerous Liaisons

23

founder of Ataka; several right-wing extremists from Croatia; and noblemen from Georgia and Russia. 106 These contacts may seem disparate at a first, but they are not. All are campaigning for the establishment of a European ultraconservative international that would bring together monarchists, far-right parties, and Catholic and Orthodox groups. The second strategy is massive investment in new media aimed at influencing European public opinion. The reorganization of Russian state media in December 2013 created a powerful media holding, Russia Today, that took over several radio, online, and newspaper initiatives. The Russia Today television channel (separate from the holding of the same name) promotes a Russian perspective on international affairs, following the Al-Jazeera model of alternative narratives to CNN. Here, also, France has been a laboratory for pro-Russia media activism. At the end of 2012, the Voice of Russia opened an online video platform called ProRussia TV, which worked in cooperation with the press agency ITAR-Press. It was closed in April 2014 following the reorganization of the Russian media. The same network became TV Libertés, the FN’s online television platform, which works with ITAR-Tass, the EDH Communication group, which has links with some old pro-Nazi French figures, and Agence2presse, which includes several far-right figures, such as Yvan Blot; Philippe Milliau, who is one of the main contributors to a French version of the Voice of Russia, and a former member of GRECE and the Identitarian Bloc; and Gilles Arnaud, former regional advisor for the FN and member of the New Right Horology Club in the 1980s. 107 CONCLUSION Adept at realpolitik, Moscow plays the game it thinks is best adapted to Russia’s current situation. It has cultivated the distinct interests of some EU member states in order to weaken the European construct, hopes to reduce Europe’s attractiveness to the peripheries that Europe and Russia share, and created new allies among the most fragile or disgruntled countries and within anti-mainstream movements. However, the partial overlap of the European networks of Dugin, for some of them built more than twenty years ago, with those elaborated by the Kremlin since the mid-2000s, is cause for significant concern. Dugin’s networks are those of the European New Right, rooted in barely concealed fascist traditions, and with some assumed intellectual and individual affiliations with the Nazi ideology and post-Nazi elusive transformations. On the contrary, the Kremlin has progressively created a consensual ideology without doctrine, founded on Russian patriotism and classical conservative values: respect for hierarchy, established social order, authoritarian political regime, the traditional family, etc. 108 At first glance, classic conservatism

24

Marlene Laruelle

and a far right inspired by a fascist heritage share little in common. Classic conservatism does not reject Enlightenment values, but seeks more gradual social and political evolution and an end to the cult of progress and individualism at any cost; far right is thoroughly anti-Enlightenment, calling for the return to medieval orders, and make inequality among men one of its founding principles. The Kremlin seeks to establish a brand for Russia that depicts it as a torchbearer of European traditions and as a power challenging the post war liberal-democratic status quo. It hopes for a mythical Paris-Berlin-Moscow axis. However, it has not extensively recruited in classical conservative circles (e.g., the CDU/CSU in Germany, the UMP in France, and the Conservative party in the UK) except in Hungary with Fidesz, but rather among the more extreme fringes. Despite an ideology of stability, the Kremlin cooperates with twilight ideologies. Does this mean that Russia was unable to find any allies in conservative European circles and had no choice but to consolidate ties with the only groups that were ready for a tactical alliance with Moscow, i.e., the far right? If so, how were the contacts made? The parallels between the networks of Dugin and the Kremlin are not systematic, but they are prevalent. For example, almost all European observers who validated the referendum in Crimea can be placed on the extreme right of the political spectrum, whether or not they have been in direct contact with Dugin before. In the Malofeev-sponsored meeting in Vienna, Dugin’s networks and those of the Kremlin appear to form a single ecosystem. Who is thus mimicking whom? Who usurped the contacts of the other? Is Dugin directly “feeding” the Kremlin with contacts with European far-right circles? His European acquaintances predate those of the Kremlin. Still, this explanation seems short-sighted, knowing that Dugin is not well connected to the presidential administration—contrary to what Western pundits tend to assume. Dugin is no more than one among many other mediators who are able to offer the Kremlin some bridges to European fellow travelers, and some are better connected than he: Natalia Narochnitskaya in Paris; Dmitri Rogozin, Russia’s former ambassador to NATO and current deputy prime minister, whose Rodina party has been very Westward-looking in terms of ideological inspirations; and Konstantin Malofeev, who is linked to the Church’s networks in Europe around abortion and anti-gay slogans. The fact that Dugin’s networks and those of the Kremlin overlap is not sufficient to prove that they are being articulated by the same forces, according to unidirectional, top-down dynamics. This more logically demonstrates that Putin had few friends in Europe, and fewer since the events in Ukraine. This limited pool thus has facilitated the overlap between different networks built by groups with originally diverging sensibilities and ideological agendas. The Russian presidential administration targets parties that are more

Dangerous Liaisons

25

populist and mainstream, while Dugin’s contacts are more radical, and more marginal. That said, the Kremlin has expanded its soft-power tools in Europe and now promotes an all-encompassing approach that welcomes literally everybody: classic “conservatives,” groups with neo-Nazi or neofascist orientations, and leftist movements shaped by their anti-NATO beliefs. Dugin may have paved the way, but he is not the manipulator/conjuror of the Kremlin’s outreach strategy. By being formalized at a high level by major Russian political figures, these dangerous liaisons have become partly “normalized.” They have lost their subversive and revolutionary character in order to acquire a façade of respectability. The willingness of most, but not all (and there are many divisions), far-right movements to join the politically correct mainstream—Marine Le Pen’s Front National being the most striking example—undoubtedly assists the Kremlin’s efforts to make these connections politically suitable in the European arena. The Kremlin is thus performing a difficult balancing act. It denounces the role of ultra-nationalism in the Euro-Maidan revolution and the influence of neofascist groups in Ukraine, while parties with a similar, but pro-Russia ideology are held up as the authentic representatives of European conservative values. The search for allies in Europe—a legitimate course for a country like Russia—threatens the European project and brings to light internal dissent within the continent that elites in Brussels would rather keep quiet. If there is a conclusion to be drawn from this broad overview, it is that Russia is far from being an epigone in Europe. Rather, Russia is a central player. Its own development mirrors Europe’s ideological quest, and its political successes and failures. NOTES 1. For a general and comparative history of the Russian right, see Hans Rogger, Eugen Weber, eds., The European Right: A Historical Profile (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1965); and, more recently, Giovanni Savino, “Russian Nationalism, 1900–1917: Ideologies, Organizations, Public Sphere” (PhD, diss., University of Naples, 2012). 2. Walter Laqueur, Black Hundreds: The Rise of the Extreme Right in Russia (New York: Harper Collins, 1993). See also D.A. Konyubinskii, Russkii natsionalizm v nachale XX veka (Moscow: Rossnep, 2001). 3. Markov II, a major landowner, was a deputy for the Kursk region in the third and fourth Dumas. Liberals strongly denounced him as a defender of the pogroms that rattled the country and the instigator of several assassinations of public figures. He went into exile after the October 1917 Revolution. 4. The movement was responsible for the assassination of several deputies and public figures. Their scapegoats remained Witte and even Stolypin—a politically conservative but an economic modernizer. 5. The Union was particularly successful in Russia’s central regions, which experienced agrarian disturbances in 1905–1906 (especially in Tula, Kursk, and Orel) and in western provinces with Jewish and national minority populations, especially in Kyiv, Volhynia, Bessarabia,

26

Marlene Laruelle

and Minsk. On the issue of the right in the provinces, see Donald C. Rawson, Russian Rightists and the Revolution of 1905 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995). 6. Smenoverkhovstvo took its name from a collection, Smena vekh, published in Prague in 1921 by intellectuals who had recently left Russia and openly referenced the Vekhi precedent, a collection of articles from 1909 and true manifesto against the ideology of the radical intelligentsia, written by the great names of the early twentieth century Russian philosophy, including Nikolai Berdiaev, Sergei Boulgakov, Petr Struve, and Semion Frank. 7. Hilde Hardeman, Coming to Terms with the Soviet Regime. The “Changing Signposts” Movement among Russian Emigrés in the Early 1920s (Dekalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1994). 8. Walter Laqueur, Russia and Germany: A Century of Conflict (London: Widelfeld and Nicolson, 1965); Norman Cohn, Warrant for Genocide: The Myth of the Jewish World-Conspiracy and the “Protocol of the Elders of Zion” (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1981); Michael Hagemeister, “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion: Between History and Fiction,” New German Critique 35 (2008): 83–95; Robert Williams, Culture in Exile: Russian Emigres in Germany (1881–1941) (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1972); and, more recently, Michael Kellogg, The Russian Roots of Nazism: White Emigres and the Making of National Socialism 1917–1945 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005). 9. See, among others, Antonio J. Munoz, The East Came West: Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist Volunteers in the German Armed Forces, 1941–1945 (New York: Axis Europa Books, 2002); Rolf-Dieter Müller, The Unknown Eastern Front: The Wehrmacht and Hitler’s Foreign Soldiers (London: I.B. Tauris, 2012). 10. Marlene Laruelle, “Alternative Identity, Alternative Religion? Neo-Paganism and the Aryan Myth in Contemporary Russia,” Nations and Nationalism 14 (2008): 283–301. 11. More details in Viktor Shnirel’man, Intellektual’nye labirinty: ocherki ideologii v sovremennoi Rossii (Moscow: Academia, 2004), 231. See also his “Nazad k yazychestvu? Triumfal’noe shestvie neoyazychestva po prostoram Evrazii,” in Neoyazychestvo v prostorakh Evrazii, ed. Victor Shnirel’man (Moscow: Bibleisko-Bogoslovskii institute, 2001). 12. Nikolai Mitrokhin, “Russkaia partiia”: dvizhenie russkikh natsionalistov v SSSR 1953–1985 gg. (Moscow: NLO, 2003); Yitzhak Brudny, Reinventing Russia: Russian Nationalism and the Soviet State, 1953–1991 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000). 13. Birgit Menzel, Michael Hagemeister, and Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal, eds., The New Age of Russia: Occult and Esoteric Dimensions (Munich: Kubon and Sagner, 2012). 14. Marlene Laruelle, “The Yuzhinsky Circle: Far Right Metaphysics in the Soviet Underground and its Legacy Today,” Russian Review, forthcoming. 15. Vladimir Pribylovski, “Pamiat,’” in R. Sh. Ganelin, ed., Natsional’naia pravaia prezhde i teper’ (Saint-Petersburg: Institut sotsiologii RAN, vol. 2, 1992), 151–70. 16. See Pribylovsky’s biography of Dugin at http://www.anticompromat.org/dugin/duginbio.html. 17. Aleksei Chelnokov, “Tri bogatyria v forme Waffen-SS,” Sovershenno sekretno no. 7, 278, July 2, 2012, http://www.sovsekretno.ru/articles/id/3197/. 18. Recent publications on the topic include: Andreas Umland, “Pathological Tendencies in Russian ‘Neo-Eurasianism’: The Significance of the Rise of Alexander Dugin for the Interpretation of Public Life in Contemporary Russia,” Russian Politics and Law 47 (2009), 76–89; Andreas Umland and Anton Shekhovtsov, “Is Dugin a Traditionalist? Neo-Eurasianism and Perennial Philosophy,” Russian Review 68 (2009), 662–78; Andreas Umland, “Alexander Dugin’s Transformation from a Lunatic Fringe Figure into a Mainstream Political Publicist, 1980–1998: A Case Study in the Rise of Late and Post-Soviet Russian Fascism,” Journal of Eurasian Studies 1 (2010): 144–52. 19. See, for instance, Boris Dubin, “Dve daty i eshche odna. Simvoly proshlogo kak indeks otnosheniia rossiian k peremenam,” Vestnik obshchestvennogo mneniia, no. 5 (2006), 18–26. 20. Geydar Dzhemal, “Evropa do Vladivostoka, ili Aziya do Dublina?” Den’, September 20–26, 1992. 21. Alexander Dugin, Levyi natsionalizm, 1992. Accessed February 18, 2015, http:// www.arctogaia.com/public/fascism.htm. 22. Ibid.

Dangerous Liaisons

27

23. Ibid. 24. Alexander Dugin, Konservativnaya revolyutsiya. Tretii put’ (Moscow: Aktogeia, 1994). Accessed February 18, 2015, http://my.arcto.ru/public/konsrev/3way.htm. 25. Alexander Dugin, Filosofiya traditionalizma (Moscow: Arktogeia, 2002), 47. 26. Alexander Dugin, Znaki velikogo Norda (Moscow: Veche, 2008), 78. 27. Alexander Dugin, “Fashism—bezgranichnyi i krasnyi,” only in the Internet version of Tampliery proletariata (1997). Accessed February 18, 2015, http://www.anticompromat.org/ dugin/fashizm.html. 28. Dugin, “Fashism—bezgranichnyi i krasnyi.” 29. Dugin, “Fashism—bezgranichnyi i krasnyi.” 30. Alexander Dugin, Levyi natsionalizm. 31. Dugin, “Fashism—bezgranichnyi i krasnyi.” 32. Alexander Dugin, “Metafizika natsional-bolshevizma,” Elementy, no. 8 (1996). Accessed February 18, 2015, http://arcto.ru/article/73. 33. Dugin, Levyi natsionalizm. 34. Alexander Dugin, Konservativnaya revolyutsiya. 35. Ibid. 36. Dugin already was quoting the German philosopher in the 1990s, but he made Heidegger one of his main philosophical inspirations in the second half of the 2000s. Dugin translated several of his works into Russian (seven of these were published due to Dugin’s efforts between 2006 and 2014), and he has written two books about him, Martin Khaidegger: filosofiya drugogo nachala (2010) and Martin Khaidegger: vozmozhnost’ russkoi filosofii (2011). 37. Particularly in France, thanks to Dugin’s long-term connections there. His “new” theory was promoted on several websites close to the New Right, such as KontreCulture (http:// www.kontrekulture.com/produit/la-quatri percentC3 percentA8me-th percentC3 percentA9orie-politique), Egalite et Reconciliation (http://www.egaliteetreconciliation.fr/Entretienavec-Alexandre-Douguine-sur-la-4eme-theorie-politique-14793.html), and Agora Vox (http:// www.agoravox.fr/tribune-libre/article/de-la-quatrieme-theorie-politique-138769). 38. Alexander Dugin, Chetvertaya politicheskaya theoriya (Moscow: Amfora, 2009), cover blurb. 39. Ibid., 94. 40. Ibid., 209. 41. See Pierre-André Taguieff, Sur la Nouvelle droite. Jalons d’une analyse critique (Paris: Galilée, 1994), 148–296. 42. Pierre-André Taguieff, The New Cultural Racism in France (New York: Telos Press, 1990). 43. Véra Nikolski, National-bolchevisme et néo-eurasisme dans la Russie contemporaine: La carrière militante d’une idéologie (Paris: CNRS-Éditions, 2013). 44. On these Western European movements see Nicolas Lebourg, Jonathan Preda, and Joseph Beauregard, Aux Racines du FN. L’Histoire du mouvement Ordre Nouveau (Paris: Fondation Jean Jaurès, Paris, 2014). 45. CEDADE was a neo-Nazi group and publishing house, promoting pan-European Nazism with the support of Otto Skorzeny, a Waffen-SS leader who fought on the Eastern Front and accompanied the rescue mission that freed Benito Mussolini and Leon Degrelle, who were both members of it. See Martin A. Lee, The Beast Reawakens (Boston: Little, Brown Co., 1997). 46. Adam Carter, “Packaging Hate: The New Right Publishing Networks,” Searchlight, March 1, 2012, Accessed February 18, 2015, http://www.searchlightmagazine.com/archive/ packaging-hate-–-the-new-right-publishing-networks. 47. “The USA and the New World Order: A Debate Between Alexandr Dugin and Olavo de Carvalho,” American Orthodox Institute, March 8, 2011. Accessed February 18, 2015, http:// www.aoiusa.org/a-debate-between-alexandr-dugin-and-olavo-de-carvalho/. 48. Alexander Dugin, “Brazil’s Russian identity,” Russia.ru, January 6, 2013. Accessed February 18, 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6RKX_GW34c. 49. Martin Conway, Collaboration in Belgium: Léon Degrelle and the Rexist Movement, 1940–1944 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993).

28

Marlene Laruelle

50. See Mark Sedgwick, Against the Modern World: Traditionalism and the Secret Intellectual History of the Twentieth Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004); Paul Furlong, Introduction to the Social and Political Thought of Julius Evola (London: Routledge, 2011). 51. Franco Ferraresi, Threats to Democracy: The Radical Right in Italy after the War (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996). 52. Pierre-Andre Taguieff, La Nouvelle judéophobie (Paris: Mille et une Nuits, 2002). 53. Ancient texts refer to Central Asia as “Turan,” and the term was used until the nineteenth century. 54. Emel Akçalı and Umut Korkut, “Geographical Metanarratives in East-Central Europe: Neo-Turanism in Hungary,” Eurasian Geography and Economics 53 (2012): 596–614. 55. Marlene Laruelle, Russian Eurasianism: An Ideology of Empire (Baltimore, MD, and Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Press/Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008). 56. “The Beginning of a New Geopolitical Era: A Talk With Manuel Ochsenreiter,” Open Revolt, March 28, 2014. Accessed February 19, 2015, http://openrevolt.info/2014/03/28/manuel_ochsenreiter_crimea; “United by Hatred,” January 29, 2014. Accessed February 19, 2015, http://manuelochsenreiter.com/blog/2014/1/29/united-by-hatred; “What will Russia do?” September 6, 2013. Accessed February 19, 2015, http://manuelochsenreiter.com/blog/2013/9/6/ what-will-russia-do. See also Manuel Ochsenreiter, “Der Vordenker,” Zuerst, Deutsches Nachrichtenmagazin 3 (2013): 73–77. 57. The Izborsky Club, created in late 2012, brings together some thirty anti-liberal figures. Many of them have constructed distinct political and intellectual paths, and disagreements among them are plentiful. However, the change of atmosphere in the Kremlin since 2011–2012 helped them move beyond their divisions and come together within a single structure that seeks to influence the presidential administration. See Marlene Laruelle, “A Nationalist Kulturkampf in Russia? The Izborsky Club as the Anti-Valdai,” forthcoming. 58. He promotes a pro-Russian reading of Finnish-Russian relations, defends Russian minorities in Estonia and Latvia, and supports Putin’s regime through his stance on Ukraine. 59. See their website, http://www.motpol.nu/english/about-motpol. 60. Carter, “Packaging Hate.” 61. Mateusz Piskorski, “Novyi slavyanskii natsionalizm v Pol’she,” White World, no date. Accessed February 19, 2015, http://www.whiteworld.ru/rubriki/000103/01020402.htm. 62. On Mateusz Piskorski, see http://tematy.wiadomosci.gazeta.pl/szukaj/wiadomosci/piskorski+podejrzany. 63. Robert Coalson, “New Greek Government Has Deep, Long-Standing Ties With Russian ‘Fascist’ Dugin” RFE/RL, January 28, 2015, http://www.rferl.org/content/greek-syriza-deepties-russian-eurasianist-dugin/26818523.html. 64. “Top Russian Advisor, Alexander Dugin, Communicating With N.G. Michaloliakos Via Letters- Defencenet,” Xaameriki Blog, November 14, 2013. 65. “The Russian connection. The Spread of Pro-Russian Policies on the European Far Right,” Political Capital Institute Papers (March 14, 2014): 7. Accessed February 19, 2015, http://www.riskandforecast.com/useruploads/files/pc_flash_report_russian_connection.pdf. 66. Barbara Jelavich, Russia’s Balkan Entanglements, 1806–1914 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004). 67. Mike Bowker, “The Wars in Yugoslavia: Russia and the International Community,” Europe-Asia Studies 50 (1998): 1245–61. 68. “Putin’s Reach: Merkel Concerned about Russian Influence in the Balkans,” Der Spiegel, November 17, 2014. Accessed February 19, 2015, http://www.spiegel.de/international/ europe/germany-worried-about-russian-influence-in-the-balkans-a-1003427.html. 69. Marius Calu, “Western Balkans Are Losers in Russia-EU Battle,” Moscow Times, December 16, 2014. Accessed February 19, 2015, http://www.themoscowtimes.com/opinion/article/western-balkans-are-losers-in-russia-eu-battle/513441.html. 70. “22 percent of Bulgarians want to join Russia’s ‘Eurasian Union,’” Euractiv, May 15, 2014. Accessed February 19, 2015, http://www.euractiv.com/sections/eu-elections-2014/22bulgarians-want-join-russias-eurasian-union-302163.

Dangerous Liaisons

29

71. “Der Spiegel: Putin Seeks to Influence Bulgarian Policy-Making,” Novinite.com, November 18, 2014. Accessed February 19, 2015, http://www.novinite.com/articles/164843/ Der+Spiegel percent3A+Putin+Seeks+to+Influence+Bulgarian+Policy-Making. 72. Nikolay Nikolov, “What’s Left When You Are (Far) Right in Bulgaria?” Open Democracy, April 29, 2014. Accessed February 19, 2015, https://www.opendemocracy.net/can-europe-make-it/euro-elections-you-tell-us/nikolay-nikolov/whats-left-when-you-are-far-right-inbulgaria-0. 73. Ian Traynor, “Greece Delays EU Agreement on Russian Sanctions,” The Guardian, January 29, 2015. Accessed February 19, 2015, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/ 29/greece-delays-eu-agreement-russia-sanctions. See also Deepa Babington, “Greece, Russia May Boost Cooperation,” Iol.co.za, February 5, 2015. Accessed February 19, 2015, http:// www.iol.co.za/business/international/greece-russia-may-boost-cooperation-1.1813894#. 74. Coalson, “New Greek Government Has Deep, Long-Standing Ties With Russian ‘Fascist’ Dugin.” 75. Anton Shekhovtsov, “Greek Left-Wing Syriza Forms a Coalition with the Pro-Kremlin Far Right,” Anton Shekhovtsov Blog, January 26, 2015. Accessed February 19, 2015, http:// anton-shekhovtsov.blogspot.com/2015/01/greek-left-wing-syriza-forms-coalition.html. 76. Matthew Campbell, “Greece: Putin’s Trojan Horse,” Sunday Times, February 1, 2015. Accessed February 19, 2015, http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/newsreview/features/article1513431.ece?shareToken=b89570f0910ccde9b945486e736dcbde. 77. Liz Alderman, “Russians Return to Cyprus, a Favorite Tax Haven,” New York Times, February 18, 2014. Accessed February 19, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/18/business/international/russian-business-target-of-cypriot-bailout-still-loves-the-island.html?_r=. 78. Igor Delanoe, “Cyprus, a Russian Foothold in the Changing Eastern Mediterranean,” Gloria-center.org, August 4, 2013. Accessed February 19, 2015, http://www.gloria-center.org/ 2013/08/cyprus-a-russian-foothold-in-the-changing-eastern-mediterranean/. 79. Vladka Vojtiskova, “Russian Ties and Lies in Central Europe,” Martens Center for European Studies, November 6, 2014. Accessed February 19, 2015, http://martenscentre.eu/ blog/russian-ties-and-lies-central-europe. 80. “Slovakia Nurtures Special Ties to Russia, Despite EU Sanctions,” Reuters, May 22, 2014. Accessed February 19, 2015, http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/05/22/ukraine-crisis-slovakia-idUKL6N0O847Y20140522. 81. “A Right-Wing Party Rises in Slovakia,” Stratfor, November 27, 2013. Accessed February 19, 2015, https://www.stratfor.com/analysis/right-wing-party-rises-slovakia. 82. Mitchell A. Orenstein, “Putin’s Western Allies: Why Europe’s Far Right Is on the Kremlin’s Side,” Foreign Affairs, March 25, 2014. Accessed February 19, 2015, http:// www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/141067/mitchell-a-orenstein/putins-western-allies. 83. Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber, “Far-Right Europe Has a Crush on Moscow,” Moscow Times, November 25, 2014. Accessed February 19, 2015, http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/far-right-europe-has-a-crush-on-moscow/511827.html. 84. “Jobbik Spy Case Stuck in Brussels,” Politics.hu, September 10, 2014. Accessed February 19, 2015, http://www.politics.hu/20140910/jobbik-spy-case-stuck-in-brussels/; Damien Sharkov, “Far-Right MEP Accused of Acting as Russian Spy,” Newsweek.com, September 26, 2014. Accessed February 19, 2015, http://www.newsweek.com/far-right-mep-accused-actingrussian-spy-273444. 85. “Orbán and the Wind from the East,” The Economist, November 14, 2011. Accessed February 19, 2015, http://www.economist.com/blogs/easternapproaches/2011/11/hungaryspolitics. 86. Magna Hungaria, or “Greater Hungary,” is the historical term that Hungarian nationalists use to define Hungary while including the Hungarian-speaking regions of Slovakia and Romania. More in John R. Haines, “Hungary. Going in the Wrong Direction?” Foreign Policy Research Institute E-Notes, September 2014. Accessed February 19, 2015, http://www.fpri.org/ articles/2014/09/hungary-going-wrong-direction. 87. Ibid.

30

Marlene Laruelle

88. Rob Evans, Luke Harding, and John Hooper, “WikiLeaks Cables: Berlusconi ‘Profited from Secret Deals’ with Putin,” Guardian, December 2, 2010. Accessed February 19, 2015, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/dec/02/wikileaks-cables-berlusconi-putin. 89. “Italy’s Northern League Party to Develop Contacts with Russian Politicians amid Sanctions,” ITAR-Tass, October 14, 2014. Accessed February 19, 2015, http://itar-tass.com/en/ world/754336. 90. David Chazan, “French Politician Defends Plan for Crimean Theme Park,” Telegraph, August 16, 2014. Accessed February 19, 2015, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/ europe/france/11038730/French-politician-defends-plan-for-Crimean-theme-park.html. 91. “Marine Le Pen dit ‘admirer’ Vladimir Poutine,” Le Point, October 13, 2010. 92. “Marine Le Pen fait l’éloge de Vladimir Poutine ‘le patriote,’” Le Figaro, May 18, 2014. Accessed February 19, 2015, http://www.lefigaro.fr/politique/le-scan/citations/2014/05/18/ 25002-20140518ARTFIG00118-marine-le-pen-fait-l-eloge-de-vladimir-poutine-le-patriote .php. 93. Marine Turchi, “Les réseaux russes de Marine Le Pen,” Mediapart, February 19, 2014. Accessed February 19, 2015, http://www.mediapart.fr/journal/france/190214/les-reseauxrusses-de-marine-le-pen. 94. “Le Pen soutient la Russie sur l’Ukraine,” Le Figaro, April 12, 2014. Accessed February 19, 2015, http://www.lefigaro.fr/flash-actu/2014/04/12/97001-20140412FILWWW00097-lepen-soutient-la-russie-sur-l-ukraine.php. 95. “L’Europe responsable de la crise en Ukraine (Marine Le Pen),” La Voix de la Russie, June 1, 2014. Accessed February 19, 2015, http://french.ruvr.ru/news/2014_06_01/LEuropeest-responsable-de-la-crise-en-Ukraine-Marine-Le-Pen-4473/. 96. Natalia Kanevskaya, “How The Kremlin Wields Its Soft Power In France,” RFE/RL, June 24, 2014. Accessed February 19, 2015, http://www.rferl.org/content/russia-soft-powerfrance/25433946.html. 97. All these elements have been investigated by the Mediapart journalist Marine Turchi, who specialized in following the Front National. See her tweets at https://twitter.com/marineturchi. 98. “Nick Griffin’s Moscow Presentation,” The Daily Stormer, April 14, 2014. Accessed February 19, 2015, http://www.dailystormer.com/nick-griffins-moscow-presentation/. 99. Charles Hawley, “‘A Partner for Russia’: Europe’s Far Right Flirts with Moscow,” Die Spiegel, April 14, 2014. Accessed February 19, 2015, http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/european-far-right-developing-closer-ties-with-moscow-a-963878.html. 100. Paul R. Gregory, “Empathizing With The Devil: How Germany’s Putin-Verstehers Shield Russia,” Forbes.com, April 5, 2014. Accessed February 19, 2015, http:// www.forbes.com/sites/paulroderickgregory/2014/04/05/empathizing-with-the-devil-how-ger manys-putin-verstehers-shield-russia/. 101. “Platzeck hält es nicht mehr aus,” Die Zeit, November 18, 2014. Accessed February 19, 2015, http://www.zeit.de/politik/ausland/2014-11/platzeck-ukraine-krim-voelkerrecht. 102. Marine Turchi, “Le Front national décroche les millions russes,” Mediapart, November 22, 2014. Accessed February 19, 2015, http://www.mediapart.fr/journal/france/221114/marinele-pen-decroche-les-millions-russes. 103. Andrew Rettman, “Mediapart: National Front’s Kremlin loan is worth €40mnm,” EU Observer, November 27, 2014. Accessed February 19, 2015, https://euobserver.com/foreign/ 126693. 104. Anton Shekhovtsov, “Fascist Vultures of the Hungarian Jobbik and the Russian Connection,” Anton Shekhovtsov’s Blog, April 12, 2014. Accessed February 19, 2015, http://antonshekhovtsov.blogspot.com/2014/04/fascist-vultures-of-hungarian-jobbik.html. 105. Originally named the Russian Society of Philanthropy in Defense of Motherhood and Childhood. He also cofounded the Gymnasium of St. Basil the Great. See the foundation’s website, http://www.ruscharity.ru/. 106. Odehnal Von Bernhard, “Gipfeltreffen mit Putins fünfter Kolonne,” Tages Anzeiger, June 3, 2014. Accessed February 19, 2015, http://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/ausland/europa/Gipfeltreffen-mit-Putins-fuenfter-Kolonne/story/30542701.

Dangerous Liaisons

31

107. “La télé identitaire, la drôle d’agence de presse et le ‘soft power’ russe,” Le Monde, January 29, 2013. Accessed February 19, 2015, http://droites-extremes.blog.lemonde.fr/2013/ 01/29/la-tele-identitaire-la-drole-dagence-de-presse-et-le-soft-power-russe/. 108. See Maria Lipman, “Putin’s ‘Besieged Fortress’ and Its Ideological Arms,” in Maria Lipman and Nikolay Petrov, eds., Russia Beyond 2014: Development Through Crises (New York, London: Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming), and Marlene Laruelle, “Russia as an ‘AntiLiberal European Civilization’: A contribution to the debate on state and ideology in Russia,” in Pál Kolstø and Helge Blakkisrud, eds., Before and after Crimea: Russian nationalism under Putin (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, forthcoming).

Part I

Alexander Dugin’s Trajectory: Mediating European Far Right to Russia

Chapter Two

Alexander Dugin and the West European New Right, 1989–1994 Anton Shekhovtsov

For more than a decade, the Russian fascist intellectual Alexander Dugin and his ideology, neo-Eurasianism, have been the subject of rigorous research. 1 Although Dugin’s anti-Western neo-Eurasianism focuses on Russia—as well as projecting a Russia-dominated Eurasia—and is sometimes discussed within the Slavophile perspective, 2 his Weltanschauung is rooted in the Western, rather than Russian or Slavic, intellectual tradition. He was apparently first introduced to Western illiberal thought in 1980, i.e., in his late teens, when he joined the underground Yuzhinsky literary circle led by Russian mystical writer, poet, and translator Evgenii Golovin. 3 Occultism, esotericism, integral traditionalism, and fascist mysticism were the subjects of numerous discussions within the circle and a way of escapist evasion of the repressive Soviet conformism. The works of two authors exerted a particularly strong influence on young Dugin: those of French traditionalist René Guénon 4 and Italian fascist Julius Evola. 5 Presumably at Golovin’s urging, Dugin translated Evola’s book Imperialismo Pagano (Pagan Imperialism) from German into Russian. 6 Dugin’s fascination with Guénon and Evola was strengthened through his contacts with Western far-right groups. This chapter will explore and document those contacts, which began in the late 1980s. My inquiry into the ties between Dugin and West European far-right groups, particularly the European New Right, 7 is underpinned by two major considerations. First, I follow a suggestion made by Andreas Umland in one of his articles, where he concluded that, in order to comprehensively explain the origins of Dugin’s ideology, more research was needed on “the origins, nature, and depth of Dugin’s ties to Western right-wing intellectuals and activists.” 8 The second consideration has less to do with Dugin per se, but is 35

36

Anton Shekhovtsov

rather concerned with the need to know more about the forms and methods of establishing relations within pan-European far-right networks, especially the European New Right. This chapter is based upon two major sources. The first source is primary data, including—but not limited to—articles, essays, and books written by far-right activists, their autobiographies and published interviews, and reports about their events, including photos and videos. The second major source is secondary literature on Dugin and the European far right. Information obtained from both of these sources is approached in a critical way, and I tried to verify the information wherever possible. At the same time, I should emphasize at least two limitations of this research. While I try to explore and document all known contacts between Dugin and his West European counterparts between 1989 and 1994, I understand that some contacts might have escaped my notice. Furthermore, some contacts might have been clandestine and unpublicized, and, therefore, not documented. Hence, I would be interested in corrections and clarifications of the contacts documented here, as well as acquiring new evidence on the subject. Another limitation is that this chapter focuses mostly on the contacts between Dugin and the West European far right and does not go into much detail on either the political biographies of the individuals mentioned or the sociopolitical contexts of these relations. BUILDING THE RUSSIAN NODE OF THE EUROPEAN NEW RIGHT From 1987 until 1989, Dugin was a member of the National-Patriotic Front “Memory” (Pamyat), the most significant anti-Semitic, Black Hundred–like organization during the perestroika era. 9 However, Dugin joined Pamyat not so much for its anti-Semitism but because of the organization’s significance in that period: although Pamyat eventually proved itself politically impotent, it was the only large, far-right organization at that time. In 1988, Dugin was elected a member of Pamyat’s Central Council only to be expelled in early 1989, presumably for his attempts to change the ideological course of the organization in a more traditionalist direction. 10 Evidence suggests that Dugin made his first trips to Western Europe in 1989. First, according to Shenfield, “Dugin spent much of 1989 on visits to West European countries, where he strengthened his links with such New Right figures as the Frenchman Alain de Benoist, the Belgian Jean-François Thiriart, and the Italian Claudio Mutti.” 11 Second, Mark Sedgwick, who interviewed Dugin in August 1999, argued that, in 1989, the latter “made several trips to the West, addressing New Right audiences in France, Spain, and Belgium.” 12 Third, Dugin himself, in the biography posted on his web-

Alexander Dugin and the West European New Right, 1989–1994

37

site, states that in 1989 he took part in the Paris-based symposium “Idée de l’Empire” sponsored by the Research and Study Group for European Civilization (GRECE), the major French New Right think tank headed by de Benoist, and the conference “La Tradición” in Madrid. 13 These partly conflicting accounts converge on Dugin’s visit to France, which is further supported by a photo of him and his wife and colleague, Natalya Melentyeva, by the Church of Saint-Merri in Paris posted on Dugin’s Facebook page and captioned “Paris 1989 with my wife.” 14 The “verification problem” with his visit to France in 1989, however, is that GRECE’s symposium that year was titled “Crépuscule des blocs, aurore des peuples,” 15 rather than “Idée de l’Empire.” Furthermore, he seems to look two or three years older in that photo than he would have looked in 1989. If Dugin himself is the primary source of information on his frequent West European visits in 1989, then it should be noted that he is not a reliable source, and his own autobiography contains several factual mistakes that will be mentioned below. Even if he did establish links with West European farright intellectuals in 1989, these contacts were tentative. According to Timur Polyannikov, Dugin was able to establish West European contacts via the circle around Russian émigré author Yuri Mamleev, who was a leading member of the Yuzhinsky Circle in Moscow before he immigrated to the United States in 1974 and subsequently to France in 1983. 16 Polyannikov does not mention, however, in what year Dugin established his first contacts with New Right intellectuals. Whether it was 1989 or not, the following years were much more important for networking. In July 1990, Dugin met, in Paris, the Belgian New Right author and translator Robert Steuckers. 17 Steuckers joined GRECE in 1973 and was, at times, close to the extreme-right New Belgian Front (Front nouveau de Belgique) and the Flemish Bloc (Vlaams Blok). After his first departure from GRECE, in 1981, he founded his own group, “Études, recherches, et orientations européennes,” 18 modeled on GRECE, and, from 1983 until 1999, Steuckers published the journal Vouloir. He co-authored works with Armin Mohler, a major German Conservative Revolutionary, whom Steuckers considered his teacher, and Guillaume Faye, another French New Right intellectual. Dugin once told an interviewer that his first meeting with Steuckers occurred in 1988. 19 Although this is unlikely, one particular detail of this meeting appears important: it was Steuckers who introduced the concept of National Bolshevism to Dugin, but the latter did not embrace it until after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Furthermore, it was presumably Steuckers who—either during the meeting or, more likely, through his articles in Orientations and Vouloir, which Dugin had obviously read—introduced geopolitics to Dugin. 20 This hypothesis seems valid considering that, of all Dugin’s early West European contacts, Steuckers was the only one who

38

Anton Shekhovtsov

wrote on geopolitics. His first articles on Halford John Mackinder and various geopolitical theories appeared in 1986 and 1990–1991, respectively, 21 while the second article was even translated into Russian and published in the first issue of Dugin’s journal Elementy in 1992. 22 That second article by Steuckers introduced the ideas of Friedrich Ratzel, Johan Rudolf Kjellén, Mackinder, Alfred Thayer Mahan, Paul Vidal de La Blache, Nicholas John Spykman, and Karl Haushofer—ideas that largely shaped the first part of Dugin’s seminal work, Osnovy geopolitiki. 23 According to Stéphane François, in 1990, Dugin met another important far-right intellectual and publisher, Claudio Mutti. 24 Nicholas GoodrickClarke described Mutti as a self-styled “Nazi-Maoist,” an “admirer of Islamic fundamentalism and Franco Freda’s 25 brand of armed right-wing terrorism to provoke revolution,” “a Muslim convert and Third Positionist” who combined “anti-Semitism with virulent anti-Westernism.” 26 One of the outcomes of Dugin’s meeting with Mutti was that, in 1991, Mutti’s Parma-based Edizioni All’insegna del Veltro published Dugin’s Continente Russia, translated into Italian by Danilo Valdorio. 27 The same year, Mutti also published a book on the “mondialist conspiracy” against Russia by Russian anti-Semite Igor Shafarevich. 28 At that time, Dugin had spoken highly of Shafarevich and might have recommended him to Mutti. Other titles published in Edizioni All’insegna del Veltro include books by Evola, Savitri Devi, Corneliu Codreanu, Werner Sombart, and Oswald Spengler. In turn, Dugin translated and published Mutti’s article on Islamic mysticism in the newly launched almanac Milyi Angel (Enchanting Angel), which is discussed below. 29 Mutti was seemingly the person who—either in person or by correspondence—introduced Dugin to Philippe Baillet; they met in Paris in January 1991. 30 Baillet is a French far-right publicist and translator of Italian right-wing extremist literature. He published the journal Les Deux Étendards and translated several works by Mutti and Evola into French. He also published his introduction to Evola’s works with Edizioni di Ar, Franco Freda’s publishing house. 31 The year 1991 also saw Dugin participate in two important conferences that exerted notable influence on his further activities. First, on March 24, 1991, Dugin took part in the Twenty-Fourth Colloquium of GRECE in Paris, where he presented the paper “L’empire soviétique et les nationalismes à l’époque de la perestroika.” 32 This colloquium was also attended by three leading figures of GRECE, namely de Benoist, Jacques Marlaud, and Charles Champetier, as well as Roger Garaudy, a former French communist author and, at the time, a Muslim convert, and Luc Pauwels, the founder of the publishing house Deltastichting and editor of the Belgian New Right journal TeKoS (Teksten, Kommentaren, en Studies). De Benoist’s paper was titled “L’idée d’Empire,” 33 and presumably Dugin, who wrote in his autobiogra-

Alexander Dugin and the West European New Right, 1989–1994

39

phy that he took part in the GRECE conference “Idée de l’Empire,” simply mixed up the titles. Whether Dugin met de Benoist earlier—as some authors, for example, Shenfield, claim—the Twenty-Fourth Colloquium of GRECE was the first substantial meeting of the two far-right intellectuals. De Benoist is undeniably the most important French New Right author: he founded GRECE in 1968 and launched or helped launch its most significant journals: Nouvelle École (1968), Éléments (1973), and Krisis (1988). 34 Later in 1991, Dugin and de Benoist had a chance to meet again. On November 23–24, the École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE) at the Sorbonne, one of leading institutions of higher education and research in France, organized an international colloquium titled “Le Complot.” 35 Other organizing parties included the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS), the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), and the academic journal Politica Hermetica. Dugin presented his paper, “Le complot idéologique du cosmisme russe,” 36 while de Benoist spoke on the psychology of the conspiracy theory. 37 Other speakers included leading researcher at the EHESS and CNRS Émile Poulat, Politica Hermetica’s co-founder and historian of esotericism Jean-Pierre Laurant, Italian sociologist of religion Massimo Introvigne, Argentinian poet and author Bernardo Schiavetta, French historian of esotericism Jean-Claude Drouin, and French historian Francis Bertin. Thus, Dugin and de Benoist were the only representatives of the New Right movement who took part in the conference, and it seemed unlikely that the organizers would have invited Dugin without de Benoist’s favorable reference. Dugin seized the opportunity to interview Laurant and later published the interview in the first issue of Milyi Angel. Furthermore, perhaps during or after the “Le Complot” colloquium, Dugin met Jean Parvulesco, a French author of Romanian origin known for his obsession with conspiracy theories, strong interest in the works of Guénon and Evola, personal acquaintance with American modernist and propagandist for fascist movements Ezra Pound, French author and collaborationist Raymond Abellio (a pseudonym of Georges Soulès), and leading Nazi sculptor Arno Breker, as well as contributions to GRECE’s Nouvelle École and Éléments. Dugin claimed that Parvulesco, in 1991, provided him with a copy of a “semi-secret report” titled “The GRU Galaxy: The Secret Mission of Mikhail Gorbachev, the USSR, and the Future of the Great Eurasian Continent.” 38 Parvulesco allegedly presented this report to the administration of the conspiratorial “Institute of Special Metastrategic Studies ‘Atlantis,’” and, according to Dugin, this very report formed the basis of his own essay “The Big War of Continents.” 39 The significance of Dugin’s meeting with Parvulesco, therefore, cannot be underestimated: along with Steuckers’s articles on geopolitics, Parvulesco’s dramatic conspiracy theories on the forthcoming “final war” (Endkampf) be-

40

Anton Shekhovtsov

tween the “Eurasian” and “Atlanticist orders” had shaped Dugin’s perspective on geopolitics even before he took an interest in the works of Russian Eurasianists. In the second half of 1991, Dugin also published the first issue of Milyi Angel. This almanac, which published just four issues between 1991 and 1999, reflected Dugin’s interests in integral traditionalism, 40 Christian Orthodox mysticism, and the European New Right. The first issue featured texts about or by Dugin, Guénon, Evola, Mutti, Baillet, Laurant, Jean Biès, and others. Dugin’s foreword to his own translation of a chapter from Biès’s book on Mount Athos, 41 as well as the editorial note published in the second issue of Milyi Angel, 42 reveal that, although Dugin never met this French philosopher and proponent of integral traditionalism, they had corresponded since around 1990 and that Biès had given Dugin several dozen books on integral traditionalism and mysticism. This indicates that Dugin’s communication with West European far-right and mainstream intellectuals included— and was sometimes limited to—correspondence by ordinary mail, and that he sometimes received books and journals from his correspondents. The editorial board of Milyi Angel is given in Table 2.1. However, it should not be assumed that all the individuals listed on the editorial board ever authorized their association with the almanac: Dugin was known to include people’s names in various boards without their permission. 43 However, it seems unlikely that Dugin would include the names of individuals whom he either had not met in person or with whom he had never corresponded. It seems very likely that Dugin was introduced to the French and Belgian intellectuals listed there by de Benoist, Baillet, and/or Steuckers, while the Estonian contact was apparently established through Vladimir Stepanov, a Russian esoteric writer and a member of the Yuzhinsky Circle. 44 The Spanish contacts, however, are more enigmatic and remain largely unreported and unmentioned in other studies of Dugin’s activities. Therefore, it seems appropriate to provide a more detailed account of Dugin’s Spanish contacts. Isidro J. Palacios and Francesc Sánchez-Bas, as well as José Javier Esparza, editor of the journal Punta y Coma, whom Dugin also called a “friend,” 45 were members of CEDADE, a Spanish neo-Nazi organization that was founded in 1965 and “set up a wide network of international relations with associations, parties, and even governments of non-democratic states,” as well as founding “several publishing houses and bookshops that acted as centers of dissemination for neo-Nazi propaganda.” 46 By the mid-1980s, the “elite group” within CEDADE (the so-called SD Group) embraced “esoteric Hitlerism” and started publishing, in its journal Excalibur, texts by Miguel Serrano, a prominent Chilean neo-Nazi who became notorious for promoting the idea of the extraterrestrial origin of the Aryan race, which had descended from the mythical Hyperborean people. 47

Alexander Dugin and the West European New Right, 1989–1994

41

Table 2.1. Editorial Board of Milyi Angel France

Alain de Benoist Jean Biès Philippe Baillet Thierry Bouzard, an editor of Sol Invictus, which was influenced by Evola and Guénon; Christophe Levalois, historian, geographer, publicist, and another editor of Sol Invictus; Georges Gondinet, a translator; publicist; editor of Totalité, which published Baillet and Mutti; co-founder of the historical and esoteric publishing house Éditions Pardès which, along with Totalité, also published journals L’Âge d’or, Rebis, and Kalki

Belgium Robert Steuckers Jean-Marie d’Ansembourg, founder of the esoteric journal Le Fil d’Ariane; Koenraad Logghe, a proponent of integral traditionalism and the New Right; founder of the Werkgroep Traditie (Tradition Workgroup); member of the editorial board of TeKoS. Spain

Isidro J. Palacios, a member of the international relations committee of now defunct, neo-Nazi organization CEDADE (Spanish Circle of Friends of Europe); promoter of the New Right journal Punto y Coma; editor of the neo-Nazi journal Más Allá.a Francesc Sánchez-Bas, a one-time member of CEDADE; associate of neoNazi mystic journals Hiperbórea and Excalibur;

Italy

Claudio Mutti

Estonia Haljand Udam, a translator and orientalist who developed an interest in integral traditionalism.

Source: “Redaktsionny komitet,” Milyi Angel, no. 1 (1991), accessed August 19, 2013, http://angel.org.ru/1/redac.html. a José L. Rodríguez Jiménez, “Antisemitism and the Extreme Right in Spain (1962–1997),” Analysis of Current Trends in Antisemitism, no. 15 (1999). Accessed August 19, 2013, http://sicsa.huji.ac.il/15spain.html.

At the end of the 1980s, however, most of the SD Group, including SánchezBas and Palacios, left CEDADE and formed the Society of the Thule Group. They continued propagating Serrano’s ideas and even invited him to a summer school at the Complutense University of Madrid in 1989, but the government blocked his participation, so the Thule Group instead held a seminar introducing participants to Serrano’s works. 48 The same year, they published a book by French Nazi mystic Savitri Devi, who had achieved notoriety for claiming that Hitler was an avatar of Kalki, the harbinger of end time in Hindu eschatology, 49 an idea that Serrano supported. 50

42

Anton Shekhovtsov

In the beginning of the 1990s, the Thule Group launched another journal, Hiperbórea, which apparently published only two issues between 1991 and 1992. The journal’s aim was to contribute to the “restoration of the essential concepts that unify our . . . tradition with the land . . . [of] our ancestors and with the blood that runs through our veins: Tradition, Land, and Ethnicity” (Tradición, Tierra y Etnia). 51 As the Thule Group had contacts with international extreme-right groups, national versions of Hiperbórea were published in other European countries, and Dugin became the publisher of the Russian version. It is not clear when and how Dugin established contacts with—nor who, if anyone, introduced him to—Palacios, Sánchez-Bas, and Esparza. If he indeed traveled to Madrid in 1989, as he claimed in his autobiography, then he might have participated in the Thule Group’s seminar on Serrano, and then, in 1990 or 1991, suggested launching the Russian version of Hiperbórea. The first issue of the Russian Giperboreya, the subtitle of which read “The intellectual press organ of the new Forces of the North,” was published in 1991 by the Fravarti publishing house in Vilnius. 52 Dugin used three of his pseudonyms to conceal the authorship of various texts featured in the issue: Dugin’s editorial and an article on runes were credited to Hans Zivers 53 and his article on Baron Roman von Ungern-Sternberg to Leonid Okhotin, while his poems had the byline Alexander Shternberg. 54 “Hans Zivers” was known within Dugin’s private circle as an author and performer of songs that reflected the esoteric spirit of the Yuzhinsky Circle. Yet, in Giperboreya, it was the first time that “Hans Zivers” was credited with the authorship of nonlyrical texts and, most important, with the editorship of the journal. The editorial was heavily permeated with the palingenetic spirit of the forthcoming Endkampf of “a Hero against a bastard, a Knight of Spirit against a degenerate, an Initiated against a democratic babbler, a Bearer of the Great Aryan Tradition against an atheist and spiritual cripple, a New Man of the North against an Old Man of the South.” 55 Dugin made it clear that “Russia laid in ruins”: “The Aristocracy is massacred, the elite of the Church is eliminated, the most Aryan part of the population is shot down, the House of Tsars is almost died out, lands are eviscerated, cities are turned into hellish concentration camps.” 56 Yet the victory of “the new Forces of the North,” whose “honor is loyalty,” was near and Dugin urged: “Extend your right arm to the dark skies of the Apocalyptic Night while crying ‘Hail VICTORY.’” 57 Apart from Dugin’s texts—one article discussing Evola’s ideas was published under his own name 58 —Giperboreya featured an excerpt from Serrano’s book, Manú: “Por el hombre que vendrá,” 59 an article on Evola by Ernesto Milá, a notorious Spanish neo-Nazi; a poem by Savitri Devi; an article on the convergence of mystical Islam and the far right by Geydar Dzhemal, 60 Dugin’s long time close associate, radical Islamist, and a member of the Yuzhinsky Circle; and some other pieces. Interestingly, Milá’s

Alexander Dugin and the West European New Right, 1989–1994

43

article was translated from Spanish by Arturo Marián Llanos, who also did the Spanish translation of Dugin’s book, Rusia, El misterio de Eurasia, which was published in Spain in 1992. 61 Some other books published in the same series include works by Serrano, Mircea Eliade (1907–1986), and Nikolai Rerikh (1874–1947). The second issue of Giperboreya was set to feature the final part of Serrano’s chapter, essays by Evola, Dugin, and Dzhemal, as well as interviews with de Benoist and Mutti. However, this second issue was never published. Apparently, the discontinuation of the journal was caused by the strengthening of Dugin’s contacts with the New Right: Giperboreya seemed too extreme for these new allies, and he decided to discontinue it in favor of a Russian version of the French New Right journal Éléments. The first issue of Elementy, which was published in 1992, did, however, feature a collage of the covers of friendly journals, including two front covers of Punto y Coma, among those of Éléments, Nouvelle École, and Orientations. 62 Dugin’s further contacts with the Spanish extreme right will be discussed below. Dugin planned to deepen his relationship with the West European New Right in 1992. In April, he invited de Benoist, Steuckers, and Jean Laloux, editor of Krisis, to Moscow. First, de Benoist and Steuckers were invited to take part in a panel discussion at the office of the newspaper Den’ (later renamed Zavtra). Dugin worked as a journalist at Den’, a self-styled “Organ of the Spiritual Opposition” edited by Alexander Prokhanov, a writer and ideologist of the Russian extreme right. 63 In addition to Dugin and Prokhanov, the panel included the leader of the Russian Communists, Gennadii Zyuganov, and publicist Eduard Volodin. They discussed the problems of “social and national justice,” liberalism, capitalism, the “cultural aggression of the USA,” “Russian patriotism and metaphysics,” and other issues. 64 The second meeting took place at the General Staff Academy of the Armed Forces of Russia. The round table, on “European Security Issues and Possible Ways of Russia’s and Europe’s Development,” was attended by de Benoist, Laloux, and three top military officials of the Academy, including General-Lieutenant Nikolai Klokotov, who advised Dugin on his Osnovy geopolitiki manuscript. 65 Against the background of the putative success of his endeavor to introduce the major representatives of the European New Right to Russia’s “redbrown” politicians, intellectuals, and military officials, Dugin launched yet another new journal, Elementy, the first issue of which was published in summer 1992. De Benoist, Mutti, and Steuckers were listed on the editorial board of the journal, but de Benoist appeared to be displeased with both his visit to Russia and Dugin’s new journal, let alone the unauthorized inclusion of his name in Elementy’s editorial board. Recalling his experience in Russia, de Benoist told one interviewer that he was “disturbed by the crude imperialism and Jacobinism of the vast majority of the so-called patriots.” Elementy

44

Anton Shekhovtsov

seemed to de Benoist “a typical mixing of radical influences taken in a confused and uncritical way,” and he asked Dugin to remove his name from the masthead. According to de Benoist, after that, he did not have “any contact with Dugin (or with any other group in Russia)” 66 for several years. De Benoist’s unwillingness to pursue relations with Dugin was reinforced in summer 1993, when an editorial in Le Monde condemned de Benoist for cooperating with the Russian red-brown groups, because the alliance between militant communists and neofascists benefitted the chaos that reigned in Russia. 67 Despite the rupture with GRECE, Dugin managed to maintain relations with Steuckers and Mutti—the latter visited Moscow in June 1992 68 —and to establish new contacts with more radical West European groups and intellectuals. Already in the first issue of Elementy, Dugin announced the launch of the Center for Special Metastrategic Studies, 69 its obscure aim being “the research and development of macrosystem models” that would consider not only sociological, economic, and statistical elements, but also “geopolitical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious, spiritual, theological, and psychological factors.” 70 The center claimed to have contacts with GRECE, Steuckers’s Orientations, the Institute of Special Metastrategic Studies “Atlantis,” the Italian Origini, the Spanish Center for Eurasian Studies, and German Staatsbriefe. 71 Given the fact that Dugin listed the seemingly mythological “Atlantis” Institute, referred to Orientations, the New Right Origini and right-wing extremist Staatsbriefe as institutions and groups, rather than publications, and continued to list GRECE even after his relations with this organization had been suspended, 72 it might be viable to suggest that the “Spanish Center for Eurasian Studies” was a euphemism for the Thule Group, as there is no evidence of Dugin’s contacts with any other Spanish organizations at that time. The front cover of the first issue of Elementy featured an image of Eurasia with three places marked: Dublin, Third Rome [Moscow], and Vladivostok. The line across the image read: “The Euro-Soviet Empire.” The front cover was, thus, an obvious reference to the unpublished work L’Empire eurosoviétique de Vladivostok à Dublin 73 by the Belgian extreme-right politician Jean-François Thiriart. A convicted collaborationist during World War II and a dedicated postwar pan-European fascist, Thiriart founded, in 1962, an extreme-right group, Young Europe, that promoted a vision of Europe as an autarky standing against the United States and the USSR (“Neither Moscow nor Washington”). By the beginning of the 1980s, however, Thiriart had embraced the idea of a Euro-Soviet Alliance (“With Moscow, against Washington”) and argued: “If Moscow wants to make Europe European, I preach total collaboration with the Soviet enterprise. I will then be the first to put a red star on my cap. Soviet Europe, yes, without reservations.” 74

Alexander Dugin and the West European New Right, 1989–1994

45

In 1991, Thiriart joined the European Liberation Front (ELF), which was revived by the French far-right author Christian Bouchet. 75 In August 1992, Thiriart went to Moscow together with Michel Schneider (b. 1947), who then edited the far-right journal Nationalisme et République, to promote the ideas of the ELF and build contacts with the Russian red-brown groups. In Moscow, Thiriart and Schneider were joined by Italian New Right activists Carlo Terracciano (1948–2005), a representative of the Movimento Antagonista faction, and Marco Battarra, director of the journal Orion. Both Terracciano and Battarra also represented the ELF in Moscow. Thiriart’s activities in Moscow were intense: he participated in various round tables and discussions, did interviews, and gave presentations. Apart from Dugin, Thiriart and his colleagues met with Zyuganov, Volodin, Dzhemal, Prokhanov, and Shamil Sultanov, three members of the nationalist Russian All-People’s Union: Sergei Baburin, Viktor Alksnis, and Nikolai Pavlov, communists Egor Ligachev and Valentin Tchikin, and other representatives of the red-brown opposition to President Boris Yeltsin. 76 Thiriart died in November 1992, and Dugin wrote a long obituary praising him as the “Last Hero of Europe.” 77 In March 1993, Mutti, Battarra, and Terracciano visited Moscow again and took part in a round table “dedicated to the oppressed peoples of the New World Order,” chaired by Dugin, as well as other events involving many of those who were present at meetings with Thiriart in August 1992. 78 That year, Moscow was also visited by Christian Bouchet, the leader of the French National Bolshevik organization Nouvelle Résistance, founder of the revived ELF, editor of the journal Lutte du peuple, and head of the French section of the Ordo Templi Orientis, “an international occult grouping principally influenced by the writings of the British Satanist Aleister Crowley.” 79 Through Evola’s writings, Bouchet “discovered tantricism and Shivaism and visited India three times, staying for a year. During this time he sought out Savitri Devi to learn more about the Kali Yuga and the Hitler avatar.” 80 It is important to note that the Russian visits of the Italian New Right activists and Bouchet took place against a backdrop of two developments. First, Russia faced a number of political and economic problems, while the opposition to President Yeltsin, especially the red-brown group within the opposition, was strong. The standoff between Yeltsin and the Russian parliament eventually resulted in the constitutional crisis in October 1993, when government tanks shelled the Russian parliament building. Second, Dugin and Eduard Limonov co-founded the National-Bolshevik Party (NBP) on May 1, 1993, which became a member of ELF. 81 The West European proponents of the New Right and National Bolshevism were obviously interested in maintaining contacts with Russian ultranationalist groups since they seemingly believed in the coming red-brown revolution in Russia—a revolution that would strengthen their own position in Western Europe and might, indeed, lead to the creation of a far-right pan-European alliance.

46

Anton Shekhovtsov

Also in 1993, Dugin took part in the international seminar “Tradición, Tierra y Etnia” in Spain organized by the Thule Group and former editors of Hiperbórea, which had closed its doors in 1992. The seminar brought together Sánchez-Bas, Serrano, Eduardo Molina, and Portuguese activists—poet and writer Rodrigo Emilio (1944–2004) and António Carlos Rangel. However, this was the last more or less significant meeting of “esoteric Hitlerists” organized by the Thule Group. 82 Apparently, around the same time, Dugin also met and interviewed Léon Degrelle for Elementy. 83 Degrelle was a notorious Belgian fascist and collaborationist who was sentenced to death on treason charges in Belgium but managed to find refuge in Francoist Spain, where he was granted citizenship in 1954. 84 In Spain, Degrelle became one of the most significant ideological inspirations for CEDADE, from which the Thule Group originated. There is little doubt that Dugin was introduced to Degrelle through his contacts in the Thule Group. June 1994 seemed to be quite dynamic for Dugin’s cooperation with the West European New Right and National Bolsheviks. Dugin traveled to Rome, where he presented his paper “Conservative Revolution” on Evola and metaphysics at a colloquium at the Julius Evola Foundation. 85 He then flew to Paris, where he was detained and interrogated by the border police and had to dispose of the copies of Elementy that he had brought with him. 86 In France, he took part in the roundtable with Steuckers and Bouchet, while also visiting—along with Bouchet—the French esoteric writer Robert Amadou. 87 The same month, Dugin—as the main ideologue of the NBP—visited Spain and signed, on June 21, the “National-Bolshevik Act” with the Spanish member of the ELF, the political association Alternativa Europea led by Juan Antonio Llopart. 88 José L. Rodríguez describes the ideology of Alternativa Europea as a mixture of Thiriart’s pan-European fascism, German Conservative Revolution theories, and the Spanish national syndicalism of Ramiro Ledesma. 89 After June 1994 and until the beginning of the 2000s, Dugin had few contacts with West European far-right intellectuals. Steuckers did publish Dugin’s long essay on the “Conservative Revolution” in Russia in 1996, 90 while Dugin occasionally published Russian translations of West European New Right authors, even de Benoist, in Elementy. Furthermore, the eighth issue of this journal (1997) was the last issue to list Mutti and Steuckers on the editorial board, while the ninth and final issue, in 1998, did not list an editorial board at all. In 2003, when Dugin founded the International Eurasianist Movement, it was greeted by Levalois, Mutti, Llopart, and British New Right author Troy Southgate, but none of them were present at the launch of the movement. Dugin did not revive his contacts with various—old and new—West European groups until 2004.

Alexander Dugin and the West European New Right, 1989–1994

47

CONCLUSION Alexander Dugin’s point of entry into the European New Right at the end of the 1980s or, more likely, the beginning of the 1990s was his keen interest in the works of French traditionalist René Guénon and Italian fascist Julius Evola to which he was introduced while being an associate of the nonconformist Yuzhinsky Circle. Young Dugin apparently hated the Soviet reality as it seemed to him completely despiritualized, unheroic, and artificial, while the works of Guénon and, especially, Evola informed him of a delusive perspective of revolutionizing and re-enchanting history by ending the present era of perceived degeneration and inaugurating a new age in which all the “traditional” values would be restored. 91 A leading figure in the Yuzhinsky Circle, esoteric poet and translator Evgenii Golovin, was evidently a role model for young Dugin: like Golovin he wrote poems under the pseudonym of Alexander Shternberg, sang songs as “Hans Zivers,” and became a translator—moreover, he turned out to be adept in foreign languages. This greatly facilitated his entry into the West European far-right circles, as in the course of the 1980s, he outgrew his rightwing milieu in Russia and started looking for contemporary West European followers of Guénon and Evola. Dugin’s interest in contemporary proponents of integral traditionalism and fascist esotericism likely led him to the journals published by the French and Belgian New Right at that time, i.e., Nouvelle École, Éléments, Krisis, Vouloir, and Orientations. He corresponded with the editors of these journals, met them in person, and took part in their conferences and seminars. These contacts produced more publications and made more connections among the West European far right. This process can be usefully compared to “snowball sampling” in sociology: “The snowball sample begins with a person or persons who provide names of other persons for the sample. This sample type is most often seen used in exploratory studies where an appropriate target population is not readily identifiable, making a sampling frame more difficult to select.” 92 The far right in general is obviously a not readily identifiable social group, while the New Right and, especially, the Evolian, extreme-right groups are even more difficult to access. Dugin’s publishing activities—writing essays and books and publishing journals clearly modeled on West European initiatives—expanded and facilitated his contacts with the Western counterparts. From the beginning to the mid-1990s, there was a mutual interest between Dugin and particular West European far-right activists. The latter were originally interested in Dugin because he was apparently the first representative of the Russian New Right who spoke their language—both literally and intellectually—and could not only enlighten them on Russian phenomena from a native’s point of view, but also disseminate their own ideas in Russia. Fur-

48

Anton Shekhovtsov

thermore, in 1992–1993, the West European far right—especially the “philoSoviet” groups—supported the Russian red-brown alliance, as they were increasingly interested in political developments in Russia that could—rather feasibly—lead to a much-hoped right-wing revolution. Dugin, in turn, originally established contacts with the West European far right in order to satisfy his interest in the contemporary interpretations of Guénon and Evola, but then he used his West European contacts to consolidate and strengthen his position in Russian ultranationalist and mainstream circles. In his autobiography, Limonov recollected that, in 1992, Dugin “unwarrantedly usurped the contacts between the patriotic opposition with the Western right wing.” 93 The break between the West European far right and Dugin can be explained in two interdependent ways. First, after the 1993 constitutional crisis in Russia, which resulted in the consolidation of President Yeltsin’s power, any hope for a right-wing revolution in Russia was lost. For the West European far right, the significance of the red-brown alliance, in general, and that of Dugin, in particular, sharply decreased. 94 Second, since the second half of the 1990s, Dugin became increasingly engaged in political developments in Russia itself and was trying to move into the mainstream sociopolitical sphere. The success of his Osnovy geopolitiki offered him such an irresistible opportunity that he resigned from the NBP in 1998 and was appointed a special advisor to the then-speaker of the Russian parliament, Gennadii Seleznev, in early 1999. However, if Dugin and his West European counterparts may have lost interest in each other in the mid-1990s, they revived their mutual interest almost ten years later. NOTES I am grateful to Stéphane François for his important comments on Dugin’s French counterparts. 1. Given the volume of studies published on Dugin and Neo-Eurasianism, I will—with a safe conscience—refrain from discussing Dugin’s (political) biography here and will list a few informative studies: Stephen D. Shenfield, Russian Fascism: Traditions, Tendencies, Movements (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2001), see specifically the chapter “Dugin, Limonov, and the National-Bolshevik Party,” 190–219; Markus Mathyl, “The National-Bolshevik Party and Arctogaia: Two Neo-Fascist Groupuscules in the Post-Soviet Political Space,” Patterns of Prejudice 36 (2002): 62–76; Andreas Umland, “Post-Soviet ‘Uncivil Society’ and the Rise of Alexander Dugin: A Case Study of the Extraparliamentary Radical Right in Contemporary Russia” (PhD diss., University of Cambridge, 2007); Andreas Umland, “Alexander Dugin’s Transformation from a Lunatic Fringe Figure into a Mainstream Political Publicist, 1980–1998: A Case Study in the Rise of Late and Post-Soviet Russian Fascism,” Journal of Eurasian Studies 1 (2010): 144–52; Alexander Höllwerth, Das sakrale eurasische Imperium des Alexander Dugin. Eine Diskursanalyse zum postsowjetischen russischen Rechtsextremismus (Stuttgart: Ibidem-Verlag, 2007); Marlene Laruelle, Russian Eurasianism: An Ideology of Empire (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), see in particular the chapter “Alexander Dugin: A Russian Version of the European Radical Right?” 107–44; Alan Ingram, “Alexander Dugin: Geopolitics and Neo-Fascism in Post-Soviet Russia,” Political Geography 20 (2001): 1029–51; Anton Shekhovtsov, “The Palingenetic Thrust of Russian Neo-Eurasianism: Ideas of Rebirth in Alexander Dugin’s Worldview,” Totalitarian Movements and Political

Alexander Dugin and the West European New Right, 1989–1994

49

Religions 9 (2008): 491–506; Anton Shekhovtsov, “Alexander Dugin’s Neo-Eurasianism: The New Right à la Russe,” Religion Compass 3 (2009): 697–716. 2. Bill Bowring, Law, Rights, and Ideology in Russia: Landmarks in the Destiny of a Great Power (Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2013). In particular, see chapter 1, “Theorising Russia’s Ideological History.” 3. The circle was named after the Yuzhinskiy Lane where the original members gathered. 4. On Guénon, see Paul Chacornac, The Simple Life of René Guénon (Ghent: Sophia Perennis, 2001) and Robin E. Waterfield, René Guénon and the Future of the West: The Life and Writings of a 20th-Century Metaphysician (Wellingborough, UK: Crucible, 1987). 5. On Evola see, in particular, Paul Furlong, Social and Political Thought of Julius Evola (Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2011) and Franco Ferraresi, “Julius Evola: Tradition, Reaction, and the Radical Right,” European Journal of Sociology 28 (1987): 107–51. 6. Imperialismo Pagano was originally published in Italian in 1928 but then Evola prepared a revised version that was translated in German by Friedrich Bauer and published in 1933. The German translation of Imperialismo Pagano was the only book by Evola available in the Lenin State Library of the USSR (now the Russian State Library). 7. On the New Right, see Pierre-André Taguieff, “From Race to Culture: The New Right’s View of European Identity,” Telos, no. 98–99 (1993/1994): 99–125; Roger Griffin, “Interregnum or Endgame? The Radical Right in the ‘Post-Fascist’ Era,” Journal of Political Ideologies 5 (2000): 163–78; Roger Griffin, “Between Metapolitics and Apoliteia: The Nouvelle Droite’s Strategy for Conserving the Fascist Vision in the ‘Interregnum,’” Modern and Contemporary France 8 (2000): 35–53; Alberto Spektorowski, “The New Right: Ethno-regionalism, Ethnopluralism, and the Emergence of a Neo-fascist ‘Third Way,’” Journal of Political Ideologies 8 (2003): 111–30; Tamir Bar-On, Where Have All the Fascists Gone? (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2007). 8. Umland, “Alexander Dugin’s Transformation,” 150. 9. William Korey, Russian Antisemitism, Pamyat, and the Demonology of Zionism (Chur, Switzerland: Harwood, 1995). 10. “Vstupim v real’nost’ stol’ udivitel’nuyu, chto malo ne pokazhetsya. Interv’yu is Alexanderom Duginym (Natsional-bol’shevistskaya partiya),” Zhurnal.ru (1997). Accessed August 19, 2013, http://www.zhurnal.ru:8085/5/duginsh.htm. 11. Shenfield, Russian Fascism, 192. 12. Mark Sedgwick, Against the Modern World: Traditionalism and the Secret Intellectual History of the Twentieth Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 225. 13. “Dugin Alexander Gel’yevich. Biografiya i osnovnye trudy.” Accessed August 19, 2013, http://dugin.ru/bio/. 14. See http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=100930559916993andset=a.100930443 250338.1766.100000001479276, June 12, 2009. Accessed August 19, 2013. 15. Twilight of blocs, dawn of nations. 16. Timur Polyannikov, “Po tropam Khimery, ili razmyshlenniya o evraziistve i ‘novom mirovom poryadke,’” Kontinent (October 30–November 12, 2002). Accessed August 19, 2013, http://www.continent.kz/2002/21/17.html. 17. “‘Entretien avec Alexandre Douguine, éditeur traditionaliste à Moscou.’ Propos recueillis par Robert Steuckers et Arnaud Dubreuil,” Vouloir, nos. 71–72 (January/February 1991): 15. 18. European Studies, Research, and Orientations. 19. “Dugin Alexander Gel’yevich (r. 1962),” Pravaya.ru (February 22, 2006). Accessed August 19, 2013, http://www.pravaya.ru/ludi/451/6742. 20. See also Umland, “Post-Soviet ‘Uncivil Society,’” 148–49. 21. See Robert Steuckers, “L’œuvre de Mackinder, géographe britannique,” Vouloir, no. 31 (1986): 6–7 and “Panorama théorique de la géopolitique,” Orientations, no. 12 (1990–1991): 3–13. 22. Rober Stoykers [Robert Steuckers], “Teoreticheskaya panorama geopolitiki,” Elementy: Geopoliticheskie tetradi, no. 1 (1992): 2–8. 23. Alexander Dugin, Osnovy geopolitiki. Geopoliticheskoe budushchee Rossii (Moscow: Arktogeya, 1997).

50

Anton Shekhovtsov

24. Stéphane François, Tradition, écologie, et identité. Études sur la Nouvelle Droite et ses dissidences, forthcoming. 25. Franko Freda has been a follower of Julius Evola and one of the most notorious Italian fascist terrorists who was involved in the Piazza Fontana bombing in 1969. See also Furlong, Social and Political Thought of Julius Evola, 16, 100–101. Dugin described Freda as “a renowned Italian Traditionalist,” who “served an absurd and unjust sentence” for his dissent. See “Professor-mudzhahid,” Milyi Angel, no. 1 (1991). Accessed August 19, 2013, http://angel.org.ru/1/mutipred.html. 26. Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism, and the Politics of Identity (New York: New York University Press, 2002), 105. Apparently, Mutti converted to Islam following the example of Guénon. 27. Alexander Dughin [Alexander Dugin], Continente Russia (Parma, Italy: Edizioni All’insegna del Veltro, 1991). In his biography, Dugin incorrectly wrote that this book had been published in 1990. 28. Igor’ Safarevic [Igor Shafarevich], La setta mondialista contro la Russia (Parma, Italy: Edizioni All’insegna del Veltro, 1991). 29. Klaudio Mutti [Claudio Mutti], “Yavlenie Makhdi,” Milyi Angel, no. 1 (1991). Accessed August 19, 2013, http://angel.org.ru/1/mutti.html. 30. “Interv’yu s Filippom Baye,” Milyi Angel, no. 1 (1991). Accessed August 19, 2013, http://angel.org.ru/1/bailet.html. “A representative of Milyi Angel,” rather than Dugin, was said to have interviewed Baillet, but the analysis of other references to “a representative of Milyi Angel” shows that Dugin himself was that “representative.” 31. Philippe Baillet, Julius Evola e l’affermazione assoluta: introduzione all’opera di Evola (Padua: Edizioni di Ar, 1978). 32. Alexandre Douguine [Alexander Dugin], “L’empire soviétique et les nationalismes à l’époque de la perestroika,” [The Soviet Empire and Nationalisms in the Perestroika Era] in Nation et Empire. Histoire et concept. Actes du XXIVe colloque national du GRECE, Paris, 24 mars 1991 (Paris: GRECE, 1991). The paper also appears in Manifeste pour une renaissance européenne (Paris: GRECE, 2000), 119, confirming that it was indeed Dugin. I am grateful to Stéphane François for locating this source for me. 33. Alain de Benoist, “L’idée d’Empire,” in Nation et Empire. Histoire et concept. Actes du XXIVe colloque national du GRECE, Paris, 24 mars 1991 (Paris: GRECE, 1991), 55–73. 34. On de Benoist, see Thomas Sheehan, “Myth and Violence: The Fascism of Julius Evola and Alain de Benoist,” Social Research 48 (1981): 45–73; Pierre-André Taguieff, “Discussion or Inquisition? The Case of Alain de Benoist,” Telos, no. 98–99 (1993/1994): 34–54. 35. The Conspiracy. 36. Alexandre Douguine [Alexander Dugin], “Le complot idéologique du cosmisme russe” [The Ideological Conspiracy of Russian Cosmism], Politica Hermetica, no. 6 (1992): 80–92. Dugin himself interprets his participation in the colloquium as giving a series of lectures on Russian cosmism at Sorbonne; see “Dugin Alexander Gel’yevich. Biografiya i osnovnye trudy.” 37. Alain de Benoist, “Psychologie de la théorie du complot,” Politica Hermetica, no. 6 (1992): 13–35. 38. “GRU” stands for Glavnoe Razvedyvatel’noe Upravleniye, the Soviet and, later, Russian foreign military intelligence main directorate of the armed forces. 39. Alexander Dugin, “Vozvrashchayas’ k ‘Velikoy voyne kontinentov’” [The Great War of the Continents], Elementy, no. 3 (1993): 43. “Velikaya voyna kontinentov” was published in Dugin’s book on conspiracy theories; see Alexander Dugin, Konspirologiya (Moscow: Arktogeya, 1993). 40. Dugin’s problematic relationship to integral traditionalism is discussed in Anton Shekhovtsov and Andreas Umland, “Is Alexander Dugin a Traditionalist? ‘Neo-Eurasianism’ and Perennial Philosophy,” Russian Review 68 (2009): 662–68. 41. “Pravoslavny genonist,” Milyi Angel, no. 1 (1991). Accessed August 19, 2013, http:// angel.org.ru/1/biespred.html. 42. “Ot Redkollegii,” Milyi Angel, no. 2 (1992). Accessed August 19, 2013, http://angel.org.ru/2/bies.html.

Alexander Dugin and the West European New Right, 1989–1994

51

43. This, for example, happened with de Benoist, whose name—without his permission— appeared in the editorial board of Dugin’s Elementy. See “Three Interviews with Alain de Benoist,” Telos, no. 98–99 (1993): 173–207. 44. Sedgwick, Against the Modern World, 223. 45. “Biblioteka ‘Elementov,’” Elementy, no. 7 (1996). Accessed August 19, 2013, http:// arctogaia.com/elem/7/7biblio.htm. Note that the reference to Esparza does not appear in the printed version of Elementy, no. 7 (1996). 46. José L. Rodríguez Jiménez, “The Spanish Extreme Right: From Neo-Francoism to Xenophobic Discourse,” in Mapping the Extreme Right in Contemporary Europe: From Local to Transnational, ed. Andrea Mammone, Emmanuel Godin, and Brian Jenkins (London: Routledge, 2012), 116. 47. Xavier Casals, Neonazis en España: de las audiciones wagnerianas a los skinheads (1966–1995) (Barcelona: Grijalbo, 1995), 260. I am grateful to Darya Malyutina for locating this book for me. For more on Serrano, see the chapter “Miguel Serrano and Esoteric Hitlerism” in Goodrick-Clarke, Black Sun, 173–92. 48. Casals, Neonazis en España, 261. 49. For more on Devi, see Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, Hitler’s Priestess: Savitri Devi, the Hindu-Aryan Myth, and Neo-Nazism (New York: New York University Press, 1998). 50. Miguel Serrano, Adolf Hitler, el Último Avatãra (Santiago: Ediciones la Nueva Edad, 1984). 51. Cited in Casals, Neonazis en España, 262. 52. In 1995, Fravarti published one of Dugin’s essays, but the place of publication changed from Vilnius to Moscow; see Alexander Dugin, Tseli i zadachi nashey revolyutsii (Moscow: Fravarti, 1995). Fravarti is not known for publishing anything else. 53. The first name, “Hans,” comes from the name of Hanns Heinz Ewers (1871–1943), a German poet, writer, and member of the Nazi party. The second name, “Zivers,” comes from the name of Wolfram Sievers (1905–1948), the managing director of the Ahnenerbe, a Nazi research institute whose aim was to research the archaeological and cultural history of the Aryan race. 54. The surname “Shternerg” comes from the name of Baron Roman von Ungern-Sternberg (1885–1921), a Russian anti-Bolshevik warlord and convert to Buddhism. 55. Hans Zivers [Alexander Dugin], “Ar Eh Is Os Ur,” Giperboreya, no. 1 (Vilnius: Fravarti, 1991): 5–6. I am grateful to Elena Strukova for locating this journal for me. The title of the article, in Runic alphabet, reads “Arehisosur,” which is “the lost master-word,” “the unutterable name of God,” and “the philosopher’s stone” in terms of Guido von List (1848–1919), an Austrian poet, writer, and völkisch occultist. Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, The Occult Roots of Nazism: Secret Aryan Cults and Their Influence on Nazi Ideology: The Ariosophists of Austria and Germany, 1890–1935 (New York: New York University Press, 1992), 57. 56. Zivers, “Ar Eh Is Os Ur,” 6. 57. Ibid., 7. “My honor is loyalty” is “Meine Ehre heißt Treue” in German, a motto of the Waffen-SS. “Hail Victory,” or “Da zdravtstvuet pobeda” in Russian, stands for “Sieg Heil,” a Nazi salute, in German. 58. Alexander Dugin, “Okkul’tnaya voyna sen’yorov,” Giperboreya, no. 1 (1991): 65–81. 59. Migel’ Serrano [Miguel Serrano], “Weltanschauung,” Giperboreya, no. 1 (1991): 8–40. The translation from Spanish was credited to “K. M.-A.,” the initials of Kyamala MelikAkhnazarova, a Russian psychologist and translator. The original text was taken from Miguel Serrano, Manú: “Por el hombre que vendrá” (Santiago: Ediciones la Nueva Edad, 1991). 60. Academically, this theme is explored in George Michael, The Enemy of My Enemy: The Alarming Convergence of Militant Islam and the Extreme Right (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2006). 61. Alexandr Duguin [Alexander Dugin], Rusia, El misterio de Eurasia [Russia, the Mystery of Eurasia] (Madrid: Grupo Libro 88, 1992). 62. See Elementy, no. 1 (1992), 3. 63. Umland, “ Alexander Dugin’s Transformation,” 147. 64. “Natsional’noe i sotsial’noe (Krugly stol v gazete ‘Den’),” Arktogeya. Accessed August 19, 2013, http://arcto.ru/article/1343.

52

Anton Shekhovtsov

65. The proceedings of the round table were partly published in “Rossiya, Germaniya i drugie,” Elementy, no. 1 (1992): 22–25. 66. “Three Interviews with Alain de Benoist.” 67. Roger-Pol Droit, “La confusion des idées,” Le Monde, July 13, 1993, 1, 9. Le Monde’s editorial appeared in support of “The Appeal to Vigilance” signed by forty intellectuals who accused “writers, publishers, and managers of the print and audio-visual media” of being not sufficiently suspicious about—and, hence, legitimizing—the far-right views that they transmitted. See “L’appel à la vigilance lancé par quarante intellectuels,” Le Monde, July 13, 1993, 8. 68. Claudio Mutti, “The Struggle of Jean Thiriart,” Eurasia: Rivista di studi geopolitici (February 23, 2012). Accessed August 19, 2013, http://www.eurasia-rivista.org/the-struggleof-jean-thiriart/13850/. 69. Dugin apparently borrowed this title from the name of the conspiratorial “Institute of Special Metastrategic Studies ‘Atlantis,’” mentioned to him by Parvulesco. 70. “Tsentr Spetsial’nykh Metastrategicheskikh Issledovanii.” 71. Ibid. 72. See “Tsentr Spetsial’nykh Metastrategicheskikh Issledovanii,” Elementy, no. 8 (1996/ 1997), 102. 73. The Euro-Soviet Empire From Vladivostok to Dublin. 74. Jean Thiriart, “L’Europe jusqu’à Vladivostok,” Nationalisme et République, no. 9 (1992). 75. The original European Liberation Front, one of the first postwar extreme-right transnational organizations, was founded in 1949 in London by American far-right politician Francis Parker Yockey. The original ELF existed until 1954. See Keith Coogan, “Lost Imperium: the English Liberation Front (1949–54),” Patterns of Prejudice 36 (2002): 9–23. 76. Mutti, “The Struggle of Jean Thiriart.” 77. Alexander Dugin, “Sumerki geroyev,” in Konservativnaya Revolyutsiya (Moscow: Arktogeya, 1994). Accessed August 19, 2013, http://arcto.ru/article/24. 78. Marco Battarra, “Una visita a Mosca,” Aurora, no. 5 (1993). Accessed August 19, 2013, http://aurora.altervista.org/05battarra.htm. 79. Umland, “Post-Soviet ‘Uncivil Society,’” 108. 80. Goodrick-Clarke, Hitler’s Priestess, 216. 81. For more on the NBP, see Mathyl, “The National-Bolshevik Party and Arctogaia”; Vyacheslav Likhachev, Natsizm v Rossii (Moscow: Panorama, 2002): 63–94; Andrei Rogatchevski, The National-Bolshevik Party (Stuttgart: Ibidem-Verlag), forthcoming. 82. Casals, Neonazis en España, 262. 83. “Posledniy fol’ksfyurer,” Elementy, no. 6 (1994): 48. 84. For more on Degrelle, see Martin Conway, Collaboration in Belgium: Léon Degrelle and the Rexist Movement, 1940–1944 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993). 85. Alexandre Douguine [Alexander Dugin], “Evola, Révolution conservatrice et Métaphysique (Intervention d’Alexandre Douguine au colloque de la Fondation Evola),” Nouvelles de Synergies Européennes, no. 6 (1994). Accessed August 19, 2013, http://vouloir.hautetfort.com/ archive/2011/03/15/dugin.html. 86. Ibid. 87. “‘My ne myslim Evropy bez Indii. . .’ Interv’yu s Kristianom Bouchet (1),” Elementy, no. 8 (1996/1997): 34. 88. Xavier Casals, “La ultraderecha española: ¿Una modernización imposible?” in Los riesgos para la democracia: Fascismo y neofascismo, ed. Manuel Pérez Ledesma (Madrid: Iglesias, 1997), 192; “Rusia. Declaración de la oposición revolucionaria,” Tribuna de Europa, no. 7 (1994): 6–7. 89. Rodríguez Jiménez, “Antisemitism and the Extreme Right in Spain.” See also a comparison of the NBP and “Alternativa Europea” in Anna Bebenina, “New Extreme Rightist Doctrines in Post-Cold War Western Europe and Russia: The Paradox of Similarity,” in Future in the Making: Opportunities . . . Choices . . . Consequences . . ., ed. Dave Carter (Budapest: Civic Education Project, 2001), 88–99. 90. See Alexandre Douguine [Alexander Dugin], “Panorama de la ‘Révolution conservatrice’ en Russie,” Vouloir, no. 129–36 (1996).

Alexander Dugin and the West European New Right, 1989–1994

53

91. This argument, which is informed by Roger Griffin’s approach to generic fascism, is developed in more detail in Shekhovtsov, “The Palingenetic Thrust of Russian Neo-Eurasianism.” Griffin’s theory of fascism is presented in his The Nature of Fascism (London: Routledge, 1991) and Modernism and Fascism: The Sense of a Beginning under Mussolini and Hitler (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007). 92. Mark L. Dantzker and Ronald D. Hunter, Research Methods for Criminology and Criminal Justice (Sudbury, UK: Jones and Bartlett, 2012), 115. 93. Eduard Limonov, Moya politicheskaya biografiya (Saint-Petersburg: Amfora, 2002), 25. 94. This argument is indirectly corroborated by Steuckers, who said that de Benoist and Dugin managed to reconcile only after the latter had become relatively successful in Russia, launched a number of popular websites, and became a radio host. See “Robert Steuckers, ‘Remettre une élite politique sur pied,’” ID Magazine, no. 7 (2006). Accessed August 19, 2013, http://id.novopress.info/id7/actu_id7.htm.

Chapter Three

Moscow State University’s Department of Sociology and the Climate of Opinion in Post-Soviet Russia Vadim Rossman

The ideology of neo-Eurasianism has gained respectability in contemporary Russia and has acquired a new significance in recent political and intellectual life. The elements of the neo-Eurasianist ideology provide the background, ideology, and vocabulary for many contemporary foreign policy debates in Russia, as well as for ideological trends in general and the concepts used in debates on national identity. This new ideology resembles the centuries-old, anti-Westernist ideas rooted in Slavophilism and Eurasianism and shows remarkable parallels with contemporary right-wing ideologies in Western Europe. Alexander Dugin has played a critical role in disseminating this neoEurasianist ideology. He tried to boost his academic legitimacy by launching the Center for Conservative Research in 2008, hosted by the Department of Sociology at Moscow State University (MGU), traditionally the most respected and prestigious university in Russia. Dugin has used the center as a springboard to disseminate the ultraconservative, traditionalist, and anti-liberal ideas he believes are needed to “reeducate” MGU social science students. In significant ways his position was representative of the current conservative and nationalist turn in Russian political and cultural life, until he was sacked in June 2014 because of his controversial statements during the Ukrainian crisis. In this chapter, I outline the goals of the Department of Sociology, its internal dynamics, as well as the main themes that occupy its research agenda and curricula, and I assess the degree of its influence on Russia’s public space. I also trace some of the multiple horizontal and vertical ties linking this academic community to other political and intellectual centers in the country and abroad. 55

56

Vadim Rossman

DUGINISM AND PUTIN’S RUSSIA Dugin’s followers often inflate his importance in Russian political life, and these exaggerated claims are often reprinted by Western publications as facts. Some English-language articles have described Dugin as “Vladimir Putin’s geopolitical strategist,” “the brains behind Russian foreign policy,” or even “the most influential Russian thinker of the post-Soviet era.” In the course of his public debate with Dugin, the American-Brazilian philosopher Olavo de Corvalho cited Parvulesco’s take on Dugin: “His ideas have long ceased to be mere speculations. One of their material incarnations is the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which brings together Russia, China, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan as founding members and aspires to be a center of the restructuring of military power in the world.” 1 Dugin is also recognized as a visionary and a person to provide the most serious ideological support for the Paris-Berlin-Moscow political axis, which has been “the apple of the eye of Russian diplomacy for years.” 2 These are obviously overstatements, reflecting more the ambitions and goals of Dugin and his followers rather than the reality of their influence. There is also a tendency on the part of Dugin and his followers to exaggerate the membership in organizations associated with his International Eurasianist Movement (IEM) and the scope of their influence in Russian politics. The relationship between Duginism and Putinism, however, is complex and ambiguous. Dugin claims that Eurasianist ideology is too radical for Putin and cannot be accepted wholesale by his regime. Nevertheless, it would be wrong to ignore Dugin’s influence on the climate of opinion in post-Soviet Russia or to underestimate the impact of the multidimensional activities conducted over the years by him and other faculty members at the Department of Sociology. The social sciences have never constituted the strongest part of Russia’s academic achievements. According to a 2012 survey, none of the Russian universities rank among the world’s top 1,000 universities in the social sciences. 3 The rankings, of course, are debatable, but few people would question the fact that historically Soviet social sciences were highly politicized and dominated by ideological concerns. As a result, the post-Soviet transformation of social sciences is an ongoing, long-term process because the majority of the social science faculty at Russian universities and colleges was trained under the old system. The Marxist idea that the social sciences constitute the forefront of the political struggle is still deeply ingrained in the minds of many Russian social scientists. This climate of opinion explains the intellectual success of Dugin and the easy acceptance of some of his fringe ideas at MGU, e.g., the simplistic treatment of world history in terms of ongoing confrontations between maritime and land-based civilizations and the political ideas of the Conservative Revolution. 4 His command of several

Moscow State University’s Department of Sociology

57

European languages, his eloquence and rhetorical skill, and his vast knowledge of mythologies, religions, and geographies—even if his interpretations are often far-fetched and problematic—give him an edge against mediocre Soviet-trained social scientists. It is not an accident that nobody in the center could match Dugin’s skills and engage the audiences with such erudite and inflammatory speeches and ideas. The success of the Center for Conservative Research can be better understood against the background of current political developments in Russia and the situation in the field of higher education, especially regarding social sciences. Since March 2013 there has been a major government crackdown on independent nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and social science institutions. The few intellectual centers that have a liberal agenda have been targeted by the state. Faced with protests by civil activists and ordinary citizens following the disputed December 2011 parliamentary elections, the Kremlin has since tried to marginalize the opposition and has targeted several important, allegedly liberal-leaning, social science centers in an effort to destroy the infrastructure of the protest movement. In 2012, a new law requires any independent NGO receiving foreign financial support be treated as a “foreign agent.” On May 16, 2013, the Levada Center, Russia’s oldest and most respected polling organization, came under attack as part of this recent wave of repressive measures. This new law also applies to higher education institutions, including several important sociological centers. Historian and social scientist Mischa Gabowitsch has documented the ongoing assault on independent social science research centers in Russia. 5 Several of them have been branded conduits of Western influence for being involved in the promotion of democracy and have received notices or warnings from the government. Some of the institutions receiving foreign funding include: the Moscow School of Political Studies; the Center for Independent Sociological Research in St. Petersburg; the Center for Independent Social Research and Education in Irkutsk; and the Foundation for Assistance to Public Opinion Research in Moscow. 6 Searches have been conducted at the Higher School of Economics, allegedly related to the Yukos Affair. 7 Sergei Guriev, a liberal economist who headed Moscow’s New Economic School and advised former president (and current prime minister) Dmitri Medvedev, was interrogated by prosecutors, and his office was searched in May 2013. He finally resigned and emigrated to Paris. Similarly, several reputable liberal arts universities were denied budgetary funding, including the Department of Philosophy at the Russian State University for the Humanities in Moscow. This liberal arts university seeks to develop civil society, and Putin’s Kremlin does not approve of faculty members’ expressions of free speech. In June 2013, the Economist cited the results of a Levada Center survey that found that the number of people who believe that Russia has outside enemies has jumped from 13 percent in 1989 to more than 70 percent, as

58

Vadim Rossman

evidence of a successful Kremlin propaganda campaign to ratchet up tensions with the West. Thus the xenophobic and ultranationalist political ideology once typical of the political fringe is becoming more mainstream. 8 The intellectuals play an important role in this conversion and influence public opinion. Members of the Center for Conservative Research can easily provide the kind of social science education and teach the concepts favored by current political administration. They participate ideologically in the antiliberal purges and support the measures taken by the Kremlin. MGU’S DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY: A BLACK HOLE AT AN AUGUST INSTITUTION When the Department of Sociology was established in 1989, its ideological approach was very much in line with mainstream Soviet Marxist-Leninist ideology. 9 Most faculty members had trained as scientific communists or Marxist-Leninist philosophers and that background influenced the ideological orientation of the new department. While a minority of the sociologists tried to introduce new standards of social science inquiry, most were not sufficiently proficient with internationally recognized methodologies of social science. 10 While many have viewed the emergence of this department as a chance for Russian sociology to develop Western-style social science inquiry and enter the international academic community, the then-dean of the department, Vladimir Dobrenkov, a Soviet-style philosopher and bureaucrat (and MGU’s vice rector of academic affairs from 1978 to 1983), had a different agenda. He opposed liberal reforms and what he labeled “positivistic sociology,” emphasizing on many occasions the role of sociology as a value-oriented inquiry. He stressed the ideological aspects of this discipline, specifically “the conservative value systems,” at the expense of conventional scientific methodologies. 11 Dobrenkov and many of his colleagues have emphasized the importance of native indigenous Russian sociology and opposed it to the liberal sociology. Several faculty members have used the term “Orthodox sociology” to describe the brand of sociology practiced at the department. Under Dobrenkov’s leadership, the Department of Sociology soon gained the reputation as the most corrupt and obscurantist department at MGU. In the 1990s Dobrenkov became known as a vehement proponent of an ultranationalist and clericalist political agenda, a person who abused his credentials as a scientist and used the department as a platform to advocate for many conservative causes, including the death penalty and anti-abortion legislation. He also called for raising the age of sexual consent from sixteen to eighteen years and opposed the introduction of sexual education courses in high schools. Instead, he suggested the introduction of mandatory “Funda-

Moscow State University’s Department of Sociology

59

mentals of Orthodox Education” classes. An outspoken opponent of gay rights, he invited anti-gay leaders as guest speakers for the department. 12 He launched a campaign to reinstate the death penalty, following the murder of his twenty-one-year-old daughter, Maria. 13 Dobrenkov’s appeal to President Putin to drop the moratorium on death sentences was backed by more than one hundred professors from universities in Moscow. The department’s ultraconservative agenda also translated into anti-Semitic activities. In 2006 students reported that the dean’s office had distributed the pamphlet “Why Do We Protect Russian Land?” which cited the notorious Protocols of the Elders of Zion as a reliable source, stated that the Jewish lobby controls the global financial system, and all the media and communications, and dictates the politics of the United States and United Kingdom. 14 Some students were attracted to the department’s lax academic standards and relaxed instructional requirements. The corrupt environment and the lack of rigorous educational standards made it a natural venue for the less-motivated children of the nouveau riche and high-level officials to secure a diploma from the oldest and the most reputable university in Russia. Many students derogatorily called the Department of Sociology “a vocational training school attached to MGU.” According to many observers, the department was known to charge students for passing grades; many students reportedly submitted master’s theses and even doctoral dissertations written by third parties. Plagiarism The most high-profile cases surrounding the Sociology Department accused Dobrenkov and his close associates of plagiarism. In 2002 the Cheremushkinskii District Court of Moscow found Albert Kravchenko, a faculty member, co-author, and close associate of Dobrenkov, guilty of plagiarism. Chapter 7 of his book Politologiia: Uchebnoe posobie dlia studentov reproduced large sections of a book written by Farhad Ilyasov, Political Marketing: Art and Science of Winning the Elections. 15 Kravchenko was found guilty and sentenced to pay a miniscule penalty of 1,000 rubles ($30), and the editorial house was ordered to publish a notice about the article’s plagiarism in the newspapers. Sociology faculty also plagiarized an article by Pavel Arefyev published in Sotsiologicheskii zhurnal 16 discussing online resources in sociology. Even after the court decision, however, Kravchenko continued to borrow text without attribution in Fundamental Sociology, History of Sociology, and Sociology. 17 In 2007, the Public Chamber appointed a special commission to review three sociology textbooks published by Dobrenkov and Kravchenko. 18 The commission ruled that extensive portions of these books had been plagiarized

60

Vadim Rossman

from other sources. The three-part report reproduced pages of stolen content alongside the original, identical texts. 19 In some cases, the material was copied so sloppily that the supposed author (Dobrenkov) refers to himself in the feminine. Some colleagues of Dobrenkov and Kravchenko touted the fifteen-volume Fundamental Sociology textbook as an “encyclopedic contribution” to the world of sociology, hailing Dobrenkov as a prolific, encyclopedic mind. A Serbian social scientist and a friend of Dobrenkov, Ljubisa Mitrović, proclaimed the tome to be the seminal achievement of Dobrenkov and the Sociology Department. 20 However, well-respected members of the Russian academic community view it as nothing more than a kitchen-sink compilation taken from different sources and having no scientific value on its own. 21 According to many witnesses, the volumes were produced by ghostwriters supervised by Kravchenko. They believe that Dobrenkov himself had minimal—if any—involvement in the production of this manuscript and that his name was used only for window-dressing. Kravchenko has used the free labor of the department’s undergraduate and graduate students to summarize different primary and secondary sources that he later compiled into the gigantic fifteen-volume tome. The method of production of these volumes explains the apparent productivity of these two sociologists. This book series glorifies the Russian native sociological tradition and uses the language of old style “scientific communism” throughout. The common theme woven through the volumes is the all-but-indispensable role that Russian sociology has played in the development of the field. Awarding Degrees The department’s system for awarding higher academic degrees has also come under fire. Many members of the Russian political elite and business people lacking appropriate credentials have received graduate degrees for dissertations having no scientific merit. For example, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the infamous leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR), was able to receive a doctoral degree (doktor nauk) in sociology without having the prerequisite kandidat nauk degree. Zhirinovsky’s dissertation, “The Past, the Present, and the Future of the Russian Nation,” was defended on April 24, 1998, as a contribution to the “Theory, Methodology, and History of Sociology” subfield. 22 In February 2013 Ilya Ponomarev, a member of the State Duma from the Just Russia political party, asked Attorney General Yurii Chaika to check Zhirinovsky’s dissertation for plagiarism and possibly revoke his degree. Ponomarev argued that this dissertation did not qualify as an academic work and asked the prosecutor to strip Zhirinovsky of his parliamentary immunity if the expertise confirmed his claims.

Moscow State University’s Department of Sociology

61

Ponomarev noted that almost a half of the members of the Higher Attestation Committee (VAK) had resigned in protest over Zhirinovsky’s degree, alleging that it was possible only due to his personal relationship with Dobrenkov and that all VAK members had been promised $5,000 for their participation on the committee. 23 Other anomalies included the defense of a philosophy dissertation in the Department of Sociology and the presence of two official examiners who were unknown to members of the Sociology Department or the Higher Attestation Commission. Zhirinovsky’s dissertation was later removed from all Russian libraries and remains only in a special archive of the Sociology Department. 24 Both the administration of the Department of Sociology and Dobrenkov personally have been accused of corruption and a range of other abuses of power. The OD Group (student activists opposing Dobrenkov) complained about the low quality of education at the department, indoctrination in the spirit of nationalism, the mandatory participation in the construction of the church on the site of the murder of Dobrenkov’s daughter, the hostile environment for liberal-minded professors, the lack of proper classrooms with adequate ventilation and air-conditioning, and the dean’s lavish office suite, equipped with personal showers, a tearoom, and a separate nap room. 25 Faux International Recognition The department’s poor publicity, growing isolation, and reputation as a rogue academic institution, both within the Russian academic community and abroad, forced the resourceful Dobrenkov to find other ways to appear legitimate and respectable. A revolving door of international visitors to the department was also intended to provide a semblance of wide international endorsement of his academic program. After the Ministry of Education announced that it would use the number of articles published by faculty members in international academic journals to measure the efficiency of an academic institution, Dobrenkov decided to establish his own in-house international journal, Sociology, and assigned graduate students to translate his own articles and those of his close associates into English. However, critics note that the translations are so substandard that sentences making little sense in the original Russian border on the absurd and ridiculous in English. 26 One of the scandals that rocked the department involved the falsification of a congratulatory letter supposedly sent by the French sociologist Michel Wieviorka, president of the International Sociology Association, on the occasion of the department’s twentieth anniversary. This letter was widely circulated to confer an air of legitimacy on the department and to give the impression of international acceptance of the dean’s oppressive policies. By June 2009 stories about the conflict between sociology students and Dobrenkov

62

Vadim Rossman

were well-known in the international sociological community. Wieviorka wrote MGU President Viktor Sadovnichii and expressed his indignation concerning the forgery and demanded the letter’s removal from the Sociology Department website. But instead of an apology, the department gave the university president an old note written by Wieviorka at a different time and on a different occasion to justify the use of his supposed words of praise. 27 Corruption Accusations Some other accusations cited in Russian media and on the OD Group website involved cases of a more criminal nature. For example, the department’s building was renovated in 2007 by the firm Rosenfeld, whose president, Anatolii Zhuravlev, was also on the Board of Trustees of MGU. The project reportedly violated many building regulations. Many observers regard the department as a Dobrenkov family business. Students have protested the exorbitant, fine-dining prices charged for coffee and a sandwich at the department cafeteria, which happens to be owned by Dobrenkov’s son, Maksim. 28 The private Moscow International Business University, which uses department faculty to teach its courses, was run by Ekaterina Dobrenkova, Dobrenkov’s daughter; the vice president of the business university is also an MGU Sociology Department faculty member, while Dobrenkov serves as its president. The business school, established in 1994, is partly owned by Dobrenkov and funded by the Karić Brothers, known as the “Rockefellers of Serbia.” Under Slobodan Milošević, the Karić brothers were the richest family in the country, and, after the collapse of the Milošević regime, they immigrated to Russia. Bogoliub Karić is a Serbian oligarch known for his dubious business pursuits and profiteering under Milošević. 29 The authoritarian and doctrinaire style of Dobrenkov’s management of the faculty also gained notoriety. He has appointed eleven vice deans to manage the department, some of whom have exotic titles such as vice dean for security and vice dean for society relations. He has limited access to the department, requiring students—even other MGU students—to show proper identification to enter the building. In 2007 several students protesting against the current administration, its corruption, cases of plagiarism and the neglect of students’ needs were dismissed from the department. Many respected professors objecting to Dobrenkov’s leadership were forced to leave MGU and sought employment in other universities. Only faculty members loyal to Dobrenkov have stayed at the department. 30 Despite the public scandals and lawsuits, Dobrenkov and his followers have kept their positions; some even continue to publish works with significantly plagiarized content. Dobrenkov claimed that the attacks on the Department of Sociology were ideologically motivated provocations orchestrated

Moscow State University’s Department of Sociology

63

by liberals and the academic community of liberal-minded sociologists, that they involved students from other departments, and that the student protest assumed an anti-Putinist, extremist, and anarchist character. In 2008 Dobrenkov sent a letter to the State Duma where he complained that students were using the “technology of color revolutions” 31 to destabilize the country’s political regime and decried his status as an embattled “Orthodox scientist” surrounded by antipatriotic forces. 32 THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CENTER FOR CONSERVATIVE RESEARCH Dugin’s arrival and the subsequent establishment of the Center for Conservative Research in 2008 marked a new era for the department and recast its role within the system of Russian social science education. The alliance of Dugin and Dobrenkov can be described as a mutually beneficial exchange—not a meeting of like minds. In the 1990s Dugin often expressed contempt for Soviet-style philosophers and social scientists, accusing them of mediocrity and conformism, and Dobrenkov would definitely qualify as a typical Sovietstyle philosopher. Dobrenkov regarded Dugin as a dangerous outsider and dubious character. However, Dobrenkov needed to update his department and give it a veneer of intellectual respectability, so he invited Dugin to establish a new center. For Dugin, it was an opportunity to gain a foothold at Russia’s most prestigious university and to indoctrinate students in his ideology. Dugin has never made a secret of his ambitious agenda to transform the Department of Sociology into his personal fiefdom. In several interviews he has claimed that MGU’s social science programs should serve as a counterbalance to the liberal agenda of Russian intellectuals, especially at the Higher School of Economics, which educates the post-Soviet intellectual and political elite using a curriculum that emphasizes economics at the expense of ideology and nationalism. Drawing upon the ideas of Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci, Dugin claimed that conservative elements of society need to create their own counterelite and to exert their influence on Russian politics. The openly declared goal of the reoriented department was to re-educate students in a nationalist spirit and to try to infiltrate the highest echelons of power. In many of his articles and interviews Dugin portrayed himself as an éminence grise transmitting his political concepts to the mainstream politics while staying behind the curtains. 33 Remarkably, in one of his interviews Dugin described MGU as a stronghold of conservative ideology, mentioning several other like-minded departments and research centers catering to conservative mind-sets and having a strong emphasis on ideological development and so-called Russian civiliza-

64

Vadim Rossman

tion. He specifically cited the Departments of Philosophy and History as fellow travelers. 34 He also has mentioned the Bulgakov Laboratory for the Study of the Philosophy of Economics, 35 headed by Yuri Osipov; the Center for the Study of Russian Civilization at the Department of Foreign Languages and Regional Studies, supported by the departmental dean, Svetlana Ter-Minasova; the History of the Russian Church division, led by Father Superior Veniamin Simonov, and the Center for Teaching Methodologies for the Study of Theology, led by Sergei Karpov, at the Department of History; the centers for the study of religious philosophy at Philosophy Department established by Vladimir Mironov, the dean of the Philosophy Department; the division for the study of mathematical analysis of intellectual theories at the Department of Mathematics (mehmat), led by Valery Kudriavtsev. Dugin has also praised the three-volume study Culture and Power by Leonid Aslanov, 36 a professor at the Department of Chemistry. These groups, according to Dugin, should be tasked with developing a new system and paradigm of education and research as an alternative to the agenda of the Higher School of Economics and other liberal institutions that try to dominate Russian higher education. He also drew a parallel between the ultraconservative research centers in Russia and the conservative think tanks in the United States, such as the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace at Stanford University. 37 Despite Dugin’s praise, however, it is debatable how much these centers and individuals actually ascribe to his ideology. 38 IDEOLOGY, ACTIVITIES, AND KEY FIGURES AT THE DEPARTMENT The Center for Conservative Research was built on the ideological foundation of neo-Eurasianism. 39 Three broad themes are pervasive in departmental activities, starting with anti-Americanism, geopolitics, and conspiracy theories camouflaged as the “sociology of international relations.” Center members try to explain and reintroduce some long-discredited conspiracy theories by providing them with new scholarly or historical rationales and—hopefully—respectability. 40 Second, faculty have followed Dugin’s notion of a “fourth political theory”; that is, an alternative to the outdated and bankrupt ideologies of liberalism, communism, and fascism. The fourth political theory takes elements of these conventional political ideologies and combines them under the banner of “traditionalism.” Martin Heidegger is considered a precursor of the fourth political theory. Third, Dugin and his followers emphasize the role of imagination (imaginaire) and the collective unconscious in the constitution of identities, opposing them to rational standards and liberal concepts of citizenship and identity.

Moscow State University’s Department of Sociology

65

They call for a “de-colonization of imagination” and an emancipation of the “dark logos” of the Russian psyche. They also celebrate the power of imagination, understood as a key element of Russian identity, and advocate for the liberation of the national unconscious. Dugin glorifies the Russian existential national Dasein and its natural political commitments. He valorizes the unconscious drives and dormant elements of the Russian collective unconscious described as the peculiar Russian sense of Dasein. 41 A reconceptualization of Russian identity lies at the center of Dugin’s ideology. He typically highlights the role of Kulturkampf (the struggle for cultural identity) and the fight for cultural identity in the face of globalizing tendencies and triumphant Americanization in the modern world. This idea was introduced in one of the lectures given at the Izborsky Club in 2012, a newly established circle of conservative intellectuals in Moscow. Many of the courses taught at MGU imply a thorough revision of Russian history in the spirit of simplistic and dualistic geopolitics (e.g., a course entitled “Geopolitics of Russian History”). Another important theme in the department’s research agenda is the religious roots of political ideologies and political theology. These topics are discussed in the tradition of German political philosophers Carl Schmitt and Eric Voegelin. This set of ideas forms the core of the social theory presented by the current Department of Sociology. While conventional sociology based on liberal assumptions provides only superficial knowledge of social reality, the value-based sociology advocated by faculty members of the department is described by them as the sociology of depth after Gilbert Duran’s term sociologie des profondeurs as it analyzes the subconscious drives of the nation and larger Eurasian collectivities. 42 Accordingly, members of the center highlight and elaborate the ideas of obscure and largely forgotten CounterEnlightenment thinkers. It is important to recognize that the center’s agenda went beyond the conventional standards of sociology. Sociology, as understood by members of the Department of Sociology, transcends the conventional boundaries among academic disciplines and draws inspiration from many para-scientific fields such as sacred geography, sacred sociology, sacred linguistics, and the mysticism of space and soil. This vision is somewhat reminiscent of Georges Bataille’s Collège de Sociologie 43 or the concept of Ahnenerbe, a Nazi organization for the study of the heritage of ancestors. 44 The outcome is a bizarre mixture of different ideological, literary, and artistic practices. The titles of the books published by center associates also borrow and adapt old fascist themes and imagery (e.g., The Last Battle by Natella Speranskaya). 45 A large portion of the center’s activities involves the clarification, reinterpretation, and adaptation of the ideas of the Counter-Enlightenment and the Conservative Revolution to apply to Russian politics, global affairs, and international relations. Especially important in the agenda of the center is the

66

Vadim Rossman

legacy and ideas of René Guénon, Julius Evola, Carl Schmitt, Martin Heidegger, Oswald Spengler, Ernst Junger, Karl-Gustav Jung, the religious historian Henri Corbin, and the French sociologist Gilbert Durand, one of the founders of the Center for Research on the Imaginary (Centre de recherche sur l’imaginaire) at the University of Grenoble and a member of Eranos circle of intellectuals. Several remarkable individuals besides Dugin deserve a special acknowledgment in our discussion of Department of Sociology activities and personalities. Natella Speranskaya focuses on post-modern philosophy and proto-fascist intellectuals of the 1930s, such as Julius Evola and Georges Bataille. She has led the Moscow Network Headquarters of the Eurasianist Union of Youth (ESM) since May 2011. Speranskaya also serves as a coordinator of the Russian School of Neo-Platonism aiming to operationalize Platonic and neoPlatonist philosophy in the context of conservative political philosophy. She is also head of the Laboratory for the Study of Imagination. At the Center for Conservative Research she has conducted research on theater, dance, and art history, studied Corbin’s theory of the philosophy of religion, and interpreted imagination through the perspectives of Eurasianism and sociology. Speranskaya is also involved in developing programming for a new Internet TV political news program GRA (Global Revolutionary Alliance) News. Some of the topics she is interested in include the crisis of the modern world, mystical philosophical theater, initiation rituals in mystical religions, esoteric philosophical practices, and sacred sociology. Andrei Fursov is an expert on conspiracy theories, elites, and global social, economic, and political issues. He chairs the Center for the Study of Methodologies and Information at the Institute of Dynamic Conservatism, which launched the anti-liberal think tank Izborsky Club in 2012. He is also director of the Center for Russian Studies at the Institute of Fundamental and Applied Research at Moscow Humanities University, head of the Asia and Africa Division at the Institute of Scientific Information for the Social Sciences (INION) at the Russian Academy of Sciences, and editor-in-chief of the journal Vostokovedenie i afrikanistika (Oriental and African Studies). He recasts old conspiracy theories and provides them with a measure of respectability using illustrations from contemporary politics and economics. Leonid Savin is an expert in the history and theory of geopolitics and race relations. His interpretations of classical geopolitical theory are applied to the study of current international politics and international relations. He also serves as head of administration of the International Eurasianist Movement and editor-in-chief of the Geopolitics online journal. Savin is also active at the Forum of Eurasianist Youth. He applies elements of chaos and complexity theories to the analysis of geopolitics and Eurasia. Vladimir Karpets is an expert in so-called Orthodox Sociology. 46 His specialties include legal issues, the history of political concepts, and political

Moscow State University’s Department of Sociology

67

and legal history. He has translated the works of Jean Parvulesco, Julius Evola, and Michael Mayer into Russian. Karpets is also a member of the Russian Writers’ Union and contributes articles to some nationalist websites such as Pravaya.ru, and the Rusimperiainfo Internet portal. Valery Korovin is director of the Center of Geopolitical Expertise, the think tank attached to the National Security Council under the chair of the Russian State Duma. He has also served as deputy head of the International Eurasianist Movement and is one of the founding members of the Right Conservative Alliance (Pravo-konservativnii al’ians) that was formed in February 2012. He was involved in the preparation of the TV show “Odnako” led by the journalist Mikhail Leontiev, known for his vehement antiAmericanism. Since 2003 he has been editor-in-chief of the Evraziiskoe obozrenie (Eurasian Review) newspaper, and since 2004 he has also led the Information and Press Release Service of the International Eurasianist Movement, serving as its deputy chair. He has been at the Center for Conservative Research since 2008. His books focus on the phenomenon of “network wars” organized by Atlanticists against Russia and other countries preserving their distinct authentic traditions. 47 He believes that Atlanticists control the powerful media empire that indoctrinate people in the liberal spirit and that Eurasians need to develop their own counter media war. Leonid Dobrokhotov, a historian and political polemicist, is a former member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and an advisor to Communist Party Head Gennadii Zyuganov. He serves as a liaison between the Sociology Department and the most conservative members of the Communist Party. Mikhail Tiurenkov has been instrumental in establishing center branches in different Russian regions and republics. He is also active as editor-in-chief of the Internet portal of the Sorokin Foundation and, like Dugin, is a member of the Old Believers movement within the Russian Orthodox Church. Some other contributors to the center’s activities include Alexander Kuznetsov, an Asian studies expert and translator; and Sergei Zhigalkin, who translated the works of Martin Heidegger and many fiction books and is the founder of the Nox Publishing House, which publishes the almanac Splendor Solis. 48 Although Dugin and other members of the Center for Conservative Research present their activities as legitimate academic pursuits, elements of extremism are easy to detect in center activities: the use of Nazi imagery and metaphors, Nazi-style mysticism, glorification of people like Baron Roman Ungern von Sternberg, an anti-Bolshevik warlord known for his atrocities during the Russian Civil War, staunch anti-Semitism, and pan-monarchism. The center and its associated movements celebrated, for instance, the “Mad Baron’s” birthday. 49 The activities of the center are also aligned with the extremist activities of the Eurasianist Union of Youth.

68

Vadim Rossman

While in the 1990s Dugin openly stressed the fascist pedigree of many of his ideas and richly decorated his Elementy journal with pervasive Nazi symbolism and iconography, since the early 2000s he has downplayed his anti-Semitism and the Nazi inspirations. 50 Dugin coined the term “fourth political theory” to distance himself from his earlier celebrations of Nazism. This does not necessarily indicate a change or evolution of his ideas, as he has yet to denounce his earlier pro-Nazi and anti-Semitic pronouncements. It is most likely that Dugin simply followed the pattern of behavior of other movements with fascist ancestry, denying any continuity with arguments and policies of previous groups and maintaining two faces. In the 1990s he openly admitted the necessity of a Janus-faced approach to ideology: an esoteric appeal to intellectual insiders and a simplified appeal to the mass membership. Nazi ideas were thus preserved for internal consumption. It is also important to highlight the role of the Center for Conservative Research as an umbrella consolidating a number of other ultraconservative intellectual clubs and centers throughout the country. They have compatible research agendas, often exchange guest speakers, and contribute to the integration of the Russian conservative intellectual space. These are the Conservative Club in St. Petersburg, associated with Department of Philosophy at Saint Petersburg State University, the Florian Geyer Club, established by Geydar Dzhemal, 51 the Izborsky Club, the Institute of Dynamic Conservatism, the Evgenii Golovin Foundation, the Pitirim Sorokin Foundation, 52 and the Eurasianist Youth clubs functioning at different regional universities in Russia. They provide a platform for cross-pollenation of ideas among different ultraconservative and anti-liberal ideologies and associated groups. THE CENTER’S INTERNATIONAL NETWORKS The overarching goals of the Center are to unite left and right parties and to establish a global network opposed to liberalism, Atlanticism, and the socalled global oligarchy. Dugin has scored limited successes in this regard. First, there have been some remarkable intellectual exchanges between Western European and Russian intellectuals. Alain de Benoist, Claudio Mutti, Laurent James, Christian Bouchet, and Jean Parvulescu, among others, have been guest lecturers at the Department of Sociology. Other guests have included Reza Sadzhadi, ambassador of Iran to Russia, Syrian Ambassador Ryad Haddad, the founder and director of the Ramchal Institute in Jerusalem, Mordehai Shrike, 53 and the right-wing Israeli publicist Avigdor Eskin. In May 2013 the center was visited by Gábor Vona, the leader of Magyar Garda, a Neo-Nazi parliamentary organization and a leader of the ultranationalist Jobbik Party in Hungary. Dugin has also expressed his sympathies

Moscow State University’s Department of Sociology

69

for both the Golden Dawn and SYRIZA political parties, and praised articles by SYRIZA’s Dimitris Konstakopulous. 54 In July 2012 Dugin attended the annual identitarian’s seminar, Identitär Idé (Identitarian Idea), held in Stokholm, Sweden, where he presented the English translation of his book The Fourth Political Theory. He expressed his sympathies for Scandinavian identitarianism and Euro-identitarianism in general. 55 In October 2013 he participated in the “Post-American Century and Beyond” conference organized by the Traditional Britain Group and held in London. The symposia, conferences, and other academic events at the department bring together intellectuals from different parts of the globe. For example, the conference “Against the Postmodern World” was held in October 2011 near Moscow. Besides the intellectuals mentioned above, the participants included Pallavicini Yahya Sergio Yahe, an Islamic scholar and vice president of CO.RE.IS. (Comunità Religiosa Islamica Italiana, Italian Islamic Religious Community), and imam of the al-Wahid Mosque of Milan, where he coordinates the training of imams in Italian. His father, Pallavicini Shaykh Abd al Wahid, the founding president of CO.RE.IS., was also present and delivered a paper on the universality of Abrahamic monotheism. Israel Shamir, a controversial anti-Semitic journalist, also attended. Another international gathering, the International Geopolitical Conference “Grossraum,” held at MGU on March 23, 2013, listed among the participants members of the Global Revolutionary Alliance (GRA) 56 and Millennium from Italy. The alliance-building efforts of the Center for Conservative Research go beyond the borders of Europe and Eurasia. In an October 2012 trip to Brazil, Dugin was able to introduce his anti-American geopolitical ideas to Brazilian intellectuals and politicians. In September 2012 he participated in an international conference at the Federal University of Paraíba, in the city of João Pessoa. The meeting brought to light the similar objectives of Eurasianism and South American Meridionalism in promoting the transition to a multipolar global order and the creation of a fourth political theory, adapted to the present political context. Participants included the founder of the Italian Millennium, Orazio Maria Gnerre; André Martin, a professor at the University of Sao Paulo; Mateus Azevedo, a scholar and essayist; and Edu Silvestre de Albuquerque, an expert in geopolitics. 57 The conference focused on the common goals of different national schools of geopolitics and on the concept of sacred spaces, their symbolism, and implications for geography and geopolitics. It is noteworthy that many members of GRA—Open Revolt, Green Star, and New Resistance—are based in the United States and are strongly influenced by Dugin’s ideas. These developments demonstrate Dugin’s efforts to build not only a continent-wide European alliance of right-wing intellectuals but also a transcontinental anti-liberal alliance.

70

Vadim Rossman

CONCLUSION Dugin’s program is, of course, too radical and too esoteric for Putin and the current Russian political leadership to absorb. Putin’s regime is defined by a tension between nationalism and pragmatism. The pragmatic side of Putinism does not align well with the dark romanticism and militaristic slogans of neo-Eurasianism the way it is conceived by Dugin and his ilk. However, Putin’s regime needs the nationalistic and anti-Westernist demagoguery of Duginism to justify its current politics. Dugin himself is not satisfied with Putin’s politics. He calls Putin a political realist and appreciates what he calls the emphasis on “sovereignty” and independence characteristic of his administration. 58 But he believes that the compromise and balance between nationalism and liberalism, the cornerstone of Putinism, is not a long-term solution. Putin needs to transform his political course, escaping the ambiguity of his current politics in favor of ultraconservatism and neo-Eurasianism to gain popular support. His critique of Putinism, Dugin claims, is not a critique from right or left, but “a critique from above,” from the standpoint of traditionalist political ideals. 59 The MGU Department of Sociology served well the goals of the antiliberal political campaign initiated by Putin. The most important components of the new Kremlin ideology—measured clericalism, anti-Americanism, and a focus on the external enemies of the state and their domestic agents—found a natural ally in neo-Eurasianist ideology. To a great extent, the agenda and politics of the center were defined by the personality of Dugin. Compared with the mediocre former Soviet ideologists, Dugin looks like an intellectual giant. His ability to cross disciplinary boundaries, to coin and introduce many new terms and categories, and to present his ideological positions as discoveries and conclusions from advanced social science concepts is especially alarming and unsettling in the current atmosphere of an anti-liberal witchhunt. Andreas Umland gives a much more balanced assessment of Dugin’s role in Russian politics when he compares it to the role of Zhirinovsky. Whereas Zhirinovsky only pretends to be a radical ultranationalist from a legitimate political opposition, Dugin represents an intellectual camp that is much more radical and occupies the other extreme of the ideological spectrum. 60 As Umland aptly points out in a different article, “The increased incorporation of ultra-nationalists into mainstream political discourse is designed to cause a comprehensive right-wing shift within Russia’s ideological spectrum, to the extent that nationalism of Putin . . . comes across as relatively centrist against the background of far more radical demands from the grassroots.” 61 Accordingly, Dugin represents the extreme right of the political ideology supplying the important intellectual ammunition for ongoing anti-Westernist campaigns.

Moscow State University’s Department of Sociology

71

Despite this strawman role, one cannot underestimate the potential of Dugin’s ideology to appeal to political leaders and to shape policy decisions and debates in Russia. The sheer volume of Dugin’s domestic and international connections, his efforts to build a network of intellectuals, his prolific writings, and his ubiquitous presence in Russian media create the illusion of popularity and make him a useful ally of the current political regime. His metaphorical language appeals to many politicians and intellectuals in the post-Soviet space. His ideology is geared to provide a common platform for all those diverse political and social groups dissatisfied with the liberal reforms and to bind these groups together. Dugin’s Center, Dobrenkov’s retrograde slogans, and the department’s activities acquired a new significance, serving to propagate Putin’s latest campaigns—militant anti-liberalism and the clericalization of Russia and its education system. They helped to infuse and popularize the anti-Westernist sentiments and bring them into the mainstream. Although many respected academics have distanced themselves from the now-disgraced Department of Sociology, the prestige of MGU keeps drawing many talented young students to the program, where they are exposed to this ideology. It is especially alarming because the MGU Department of Sociology serves as a model for many other Russian universities, and its textbooks, methodologies, and practices are widely copied by many large regional Russian universities. Many observers and members of the academic community believe that Dugin’s activities are funded by the United Russia party through the President’s Office. 62 Although these widely circulated rumors cannot be confirmed, Putin likely finds many of the ideas propagated at the Department of Sociology congenial and treats the intellectuals of this sort as perhaps temporary but, very useful, bedfellows. However, this outreach had its limits. The mounting criticism aimed at the department, its orientation, Dobrenkov’s blantant incompetency, and Dugin’s violent statements during the Ukrainian crisis—calling on Russians to “kill” Ukrainians—eventually proved too egregious to ignore. In June 2014, Dobrenkov was sent into retirement: he left his title of Dean but is still listed as Head of the Department of History and Theory of Sociology. Dugin was dismissed from the university. This was a harsh blow for Dugin, who had spent years building this façade of academic respectability, and he will likely now be reduced to a less prestigious status of an “independent philosopher.” But this episode demonstrates that the Kremlin is still able to determine what is—and is not— acceptable in terms of nationalist narratives. NOTES 1. Olavo de Carvalho, “A Suggestion to the Right-Thinking: Check into a Mental Hospital,” Diario do Comercio (Sao Paulo), January 30, 2006; “USA and The New Order: Excerpts

72

Vadim Rossman

from the Alexander Dugin and Olavo De Carvallo Debate,” July 2011. Accessed January 31, 2014, http://openrevolt.info/2011/09/15/usa-and-the-new-world-order-dugin-debates-olavo-pt1/. 2. Jean Parvulesco, Vladimir Poutin et l’Eurasie (Paris: Amis de la culture europeenne, 2005). 3. “University Ranking by Academic Performance: 2012–2013 Social Sciences Ranking,” METU Informatics Institute, http://www.urapcenter.org/2012/soc.php?q=MS0yNTA percent3D. The rankings can be debated, but it is clear that the process of adaptation and transition in Russian social sciences is taking a long time. Russia did not have time to establish a reputation in this field and close the gap despite the great scientific achievements of many Russian economists and other social scientists. 4. The Conservative Revolutionary movement was a German national conservative movement, prominent in the years following World War I. Members of this movement sought to end the rising tide of liberalism and rejected the materialistic, commercial culture of industrial civilization. 5. Mischa Gabowitsch, “Save the Levada Center and Other Social Science Institutions in Russia!” Gabowitsch Blog, March 19, 2013. Accessed February 10, 2015, http://gabowitsch.net/levadablog1/. 6. Starting in early March 2013, the Russian government launched a nationwide campaign of inspections of nongovernmental organizations, unprecedented in its scale and scope. “Russia: ‘Foreign Agents’ Law Hits Hundreds of NGOs,” Human Rights Watch, last modified June 3, 2013, http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/05/14/russia-foreign-agents-law-hits-hundreds-ngosupdated-june-3-2013. 7. The so-called Yukos Affair started in October 2003 when Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the richest man in Russia and the founder of Yukos, one of the largest Russian oil companies, was arrested. Later the company was forcibly broken up for alleged unpaid taxes. Courts in several countries later ruled that the real intent of the government was to destroy Yukos and obtain its assets for the government. 8. “Repression Ahead: Vladimir Putin’s Crackdown on Opponents, Protesters, and Activist Groups May be a Sign of Fragility as Much as of Strength,” Economist, June 1, 2013. 9. Under Stalin sociology was not recognized as a separate academic discipline. In the USSR it emerged only in the 1960s but acquired an independent status as a discipline much later. In 1967 a small Division of Applied Sociological Research (Kafedra metodiki konkretnykh sotsial’nykh issledovanii) was formed within the MGU Department of Philosophy and in 1989 the Department of Sociology was established. 10. Following the Communist Party Politburo resolution of June 1988, “On Strengthening of the Role of Marxist-Leninist Sociology in Solving Key Problems of Soviet Society,” the Russian Ministry of Higher Education moved to establish sociology departments in the universities of Moscow and Leningrad. For more details see Dmitry Shalin, “Sociology for the Glasnost Era: Institutional and Substantive Change in Recent Soviet Sociology,” Social Forces, 68 (1990): 1–21; Vladimir Shlapentokh, The Politics of Sociology in the Soviet Union (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1987). 11. Vladimir Dobrenkov, Tsennostno-orientirovannaya sotsiologya: problemnoe pole postneklassicheskoi metodologii (Moskva, 2011). See also Dmitry Shalin, “National Sociology and Paradigm Pluralism: Pragmatist Reflections on Russian and American Sociology” (unpublished paper, 2008). 12. In 2008 Dobrenkov invited Paul Cameron, an American anti-gay activist, to speak at the department. His lecture, “Homosexuality and the Demographic Problem,” linked different types of deviant behaviors (use of drugs and alcohol, drunk driving, and tax evasion) to homosexuality. Cameron supported his message with dubious research findings. Cameron has been denounced by major professional associations of psychologists and sociologists in the United States and Canada. See Gregory Herek, “From Russia With Hate: Paul Cameron @ Moscow State U. Sociology Department,” Beyond Homophobia, July 1, 2008, http:// www.beyondhomophobia.com/blog/2008/07/01/from-russia-with-hate-paul-cameron-moscowstate-u-sociology-dept/.

Moscow State University’s Department of Sociology

73

13. In 2001 Maria and her boyfriend, nineteen-year-old Alexander Panakov, a grandchild of Valerii Greifer, LUKoil board of directors chairman, were murdered on New Year’s Eve by young drug addicts who tried unsuccessfully to steal Alexander’s luxury four-wheel drive. To commemorate his daughter in 2006, Dobrenkov established the Maria Memorial Foundation to raise funds to construct a church on the site of her death. 14. The brochure was based on a book in which Jews are painted as the servants of Satan, opposed to God and Russians. See V. Modvedev, V. Khomiakov, and V. Bolokur, Natsionalnaya ideya ili chego ozhidaet Bog ot Rossii (Moscow: Sovremennie tetradi, 2005). 15. Albert Kravchenko, Politologiya: Uchebnoe posobie dlya studentov (Moscow, 2001); Farhad Ilyasov, Political Marketing: Art and Science of Winning the Elections (Moscow: IMA Press, 2000). 16. Pavel Arefyev, “Navigator po telekommunikatsionnim resursam v sotsiologii,” Sotsiologicheskii zhurnal, no. 3–4 (1999), 139–86. 17. N. Demina, “Nauka Copy-Paste: Kak Albert Kravchenko izyal zapoved Ne ukradi iz printsipov pravoslavnoi sotsiologii,” Polit.ru, August 24, 2007. 18. The following three textbooks were subjected to expertise: V. Dobrenkov and A. Kravchenko, Fundamental Sociology, vol. 1, Theory and Methodology (Moscow: INFRA-M, 2003); A. Kravchenko, Istoriya sotsiologii: uchebnik (Moscow: Prospekt, 2006); V. Dobrenkov and A. Kravchenko, Sotsiologiya: uchebnik (Moscow: Infra-M, 2007). 19. “Nenazvannie soavtori V.I. Dobrenkova i A.I. Kravchenko? (rezultaty ekspertisy),” Polit.ru, May 25, 2007, http://polit.ru/article/2007/05/28/sociology/. 20. Ljubisa Mitrović, “The Encyclopedic Contribution of Vladimir Ivanovic Dobrenkov to Contemporary Russian Sociology,” Facta Universitatis 12 (2013): 103–10, http://facta.junis.ni.ac.rs/pas/pas201301/pas201301-09.pdf. 21. See Center for Independent Social Research, “Stoit priznat, chto kachestvo prepodavania sotsiologii v strane voobshche ochen nizkoe,” Polit.ru, March 18, 2007, http:// www.polit.ru/article/2007/03/23/voronkov/. 22. A. Sergeev, “Doktor Zhirinovskii zakazal Starovoitovu za to, chto trebovala annulirovat ego dissertatsiiu?” Forum-MSK, March 11, 2013. Accessed January 31, 2014, http://forummsk.org/material/politic/9831952.html. 23. Ilya Ponomarev, “Zapros Chaike o lishenii neprikosnovennosti Vladimira Zhirinyvskogo,” Novaya gazeta, February 18, 2013. 24. According to a department spokesman, the doctoral degree was awarded to Zhirinovsky based not on the dissertation per se, but on the dissertation summary and his eleven volumes of published articles. The eighty pages submitted in lieu of an actual dissertation represent a compilation of his earlier published news articles. It is remarkable that many recent publications published after the public appeals of Ponomarev link the 1998 assassination of Galina Strarovoitova, a democracy activist and ethnographer, with her protests against rewarding of the doctoral degree to Vladimir Zhirinovsky. One of the assassins was a member of the LDPR party. See Sergeev, “Doktor Zhirinovskii zakazal Starovoitovu.” 25. See OD Group website: http://www.od-group.org/. 26. Olga Serebryannaya, “Neperevodimii imperativ duri,” Snob, January 8, 2013. 27. “Sotsfak MGU popalsya na sfabrikovannom pozdrvalenii or presidenta mezhdunarodnoi sotsiologicheskoi assotsiatsii,” Polit.ru, June 10, 2009, http://polit.ru/news/2009/06/10/socfak/. In 2007 Wiewiorka supported the students of the Sociology Department in their conflict with the department administration. 28. Dobrenkov denied his son’s ownership. Oleg Ivanov, a former faculty member, provides compelling evidence of the opposite. See Oleg Roldugin, “MGU: Mnogie gotovi urvat,” Sobesednik, July 1, 2010. Accessed February 10, 2015, http://sobesednik.ru/investigation/ sobes_20_10_mgu. He also shows that Dobrenkov invented a scheme to subsidize the cafeteria from the Sociology Department budget, simultaneously charging the employees of the department for their lunches while withdrawing money from their paychecks. During the early stages of the protest, Dobrenkov was quoted as saying that the Sociology Department does not have poor students. 29. The four Karić brothers (Zoran, Sretan, Dragomir, Bogoljub) were the best-known members of the new Serbian elite that rose under the regime of former President Slobodan

74

Vadim Rossman

Milošević. Their business empire, with annual revenues over $5 billion, included banking, mobile telephone networks, Internet access, and the BK TV station. After the collapse of the Milošević regime in 1999, the authorities accused Bogoljub, the youngest brother, whose personal wealth is estimated at $3–5 billion, of tax evasion, money laundering, and investment fraud. A very close personal friend of Milošević, Bogoljub fled Serbia for Russia in 2001, and Russia has refused to extradite him. (Dragan Stojkovic, “The Brothers Karic,” Transitions Online [October 26, 2001] http://www.tol.org/client/article/2456-the-brothers-karic.html.) Dragomir Karić currently serves as a chair of the Board of Trustees of the International Business and Management University, of which Dobrenkov is the president. See Oleg Ivanov, “MUBiU: sotsfak v zerkalnom otrazhenii,” March 8, 2007, http://olegivanov62.livejournal.com/4632.html. Accessed January 31, 2014. At the moment he is president of the Itera oil and gas company’s development division. He is also in charge of city construction in Minsk, Belarus. 30. See “Prepodavatelya MGU, uchastnika Initsiativnoi gruppy MGU, uvol’nyayut za obshchestvenniyu deyatel’nost’,” OD Group, February 25, 2013, http://www.od-group.org/. 31. “Color revolution” is a term that is used to describe a revolutionary wave and various related movements that developed in several societies in the former USSR and the Balkans during the early 2000s. These include Georgia’s Rose Revolution (2003) and Ukraine’s Orange Revolution (2004). The term has also been applied to a number of revolutions elsewhere (e.g., “Yellow Revolution” in the Philippines in 1986). These movements generally adopted a specific color or flower as their symbol. The color revolutions are notable for the important role of NGOs and, particularly, student activists in organizing protest and non-violent resistance. In many cases these protests followed contested elections. 32. Andrey Larin, “Slaboe zveno Moskovskogo universiteta, ili zatyanuvshiisya zakat professor Dobrenkova,” APN, February 4, 2007. Natalia Morar, a Moldovan investigative journalist and a leader of protest movement in Moldova in 2009, was once a student in the MGU sociology department. 33. He claimed that his goal is to inject his ideas into the ideological vacuum of Russian life and to see how they penetrate into the discourse of the mainstream political parties and public debates. The collapse of old ideologies and the paucity of original ideas in contemporary Russian life, Dugin argued, will draw people from different political parties to his ideology, which resonates with deep layers of the collective Russian unconscious. Therefore, Dugin claimed, his ideas are destined to infiltrate the mainstream and shape public debates in Russia. The goal of his All-Russian Political Social Movement “Eurasia” was “not to achieve political power, nor to fight for power, but to fight for influence on it.” The channels of such an influence go beyond the parliamentary sphere and elections. The domination in the cultural sphere lays the grounds for the later capture of political power. Alexander Dugin, “Evraziistvo: ot filosofii k politike,” Evraziya (April 21, 2001), http://evrazia.org/modules.php?name=Newsandfile=articleandsid=734. 34. Alexander Dugin, “Presentatsiya ideologii Tsentra konservativnikh issledovanii,” Sorokin Fond, September 16, 2008. Accessed February 10, 2015, http://www.sorokinfond.ru/index.php?id=582. 35. Named after a well-known work by Russian religious philosopher Sergii Bulgakov (1871–1944) at the MGU Economics Department. 36. Leonid Aslanov, Culture and Power (Moscow, 2001). Dugin approvingly claims that Viktor Sadovnichii, the president of MGU, has initiated a wide public discussion of this work. 37. Ibid. 38. Mikhail Tyurenkov, “Moskovskii universitet—poslednii bastion russkoy gumanitarnoy nauki (interview with Alexander Dugin),” Sorokin Fond. Accessed January 30, 2014, http:// www.sorokinfond.ru/index.php?id=1121. 39. Marlene Laruelle, Russian Eurasianism: The Ideology of Empire (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008); A.M. Höllwerth, Das sakrale eurasische Imperium des Alexander Dugin: Eine Diskursanalyse zum postsowjetischen russischen Rechtsextremismus (Stuttgart: ibidem-Verlag, 2007); Vadim Rossman, Russian Intellectual Antisemitism in the PostCommunist Era (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2002); Andreas Umland, “Pathological Tendencies in Russian Neo-Eurasianism,” Russian Politics and Law 47 (January/February

Moscow State University’s Department of Sociology

75

2009): 76–89; Alexander Verkhovsky and Galina Kozhevnikova, eds., Radical Russian Nationalism: Structures, Ideas, Persons (Moscow: Informatsionno-analiticheskiy tsentr SOVA, 2009). 40. Marlene Laruelle, “Conspiracy and Alternate History in Russia: A Nationalist Equation for Success,” Russian Review 71 (October 2012): 557–74. 41. The German existential philosopher Martin Heidegger introduced the notion of “dasein” to mean “being there” or “presence.” Heidegger uses this expression to refer to the experience of being that is peculiar to human beings. Alexander Dugin, “Logos i Mifos: Kurs lektsii po sotsiologii glubin,” 2009, http://www.imaginaire.ru/content/dugin-logos-i-mifos-sociologiyaglubin. 42. Gilbert Duran, “De la psychologie des profondeurs à une sociologie profonde par Gilbert Durand,” Revue 3eme Millénaire, September 27, 2012. Accessed February 10, 2015, http:// www.revue3emillenaire.com/blog/de-la-psychologie-des-profondeurs-a-une-sociologie-profonde-par-gilbert-durand/. 43. The College of Sociology (Collège de Sociologie in French) was a loosely knit group of French intellectuals who carried out a series of informal discussions in Paris between 1937 and 1939, when World War II disrupted their meetings. 44. In many books and articles written in the 1990s, Dugin referenced Ahnenerbe and Hermann Wirth, one of the leading members of this institute, as a source of his intellectual inspirations, emphasizing the Nazi völkisch mystical collective concept celebrated by this Nazi organization. He also described it as a sort of chivalrous order within Nazi ideological framework. 45. Natella Speranskaya, ENDKAMPF. Misterionsophia Nihiladeptus (Moscow, 2010). The concept of Endkampf was developed in Germany during the last months of the war. The idea was that Germany needs to continue to fight through any means necessary and accept total defeat rather than surrender. The concept also has a mystical meaning of the last battle of the forces of good and evil. 46. It followed the recent trend to apply the word “Orthodox” to different scientific disciplines and art forms from economics and theater to medicine and even molecular biology. The curious example of this phenomenon is a recent book edited by Vsevolod Chaplin, the spokesman for the Russian Orthodox Church, and titled Orthodox Molecular Biology. Chaplin also delivered a lecture at the Center for Conservative Research in 2009. 47. His books include Nakanune imperii. Prikladnaya geopolitika i setevye voiny (Moscow: Evraziiskoe dvizhenie, 2008) and Glavnaya voennaya tayna SShA. Setevye voiny (Moscow: Eksmo, 2009). 48. Metafizika vechnogo vozvrashcheniya (Moskva: Nox, 1996) 49. A. Dugin, “Baron Ungern: Bog voiny,” October 25, 2009; Neistovyi gumanism barona Ungerna, December 31, 2012. Accessed January 31, 2014, http://www.evrazia.tv/content/baron-ungern-bog-voyny- Alexander-dugin-finis-mundi. 50. Vadim Rossman, “Anti-Semitism and Geopolitics in Post-Communist Russia: The Changing Attitudes of Alexander Dugin,” in Das “bewegliche’ Vorurteil”—Eigen-und Fremdbilder der Jüdischen, ed. by Christina von Braun and Eva-Maria Ziege (Berlin: Philo-Verlag, 2004). 51. Florian Geyer (1490–1525) was a Franconian nobleman who mobilized the peasantry during the German Peasants’ War. He was glorified by both Friedrich Engels as a communist revolutionary and Adolf Hitler as a national hero. The 8th Waffen-SS Cavalry Division Florian Geyer was named after him. In World War II it was involved in anti-partisan operations behind the front line and was responsible for the extermination of tens of thousands of civilians. 52. The Sorokin Foundation is closely associated with the MGU Department of Sociology. Although its original goal was to translate, promote, and publish the sociological works of Pitirim Sorokin, it also became one of the centers of ultra-conservative and anti-liberal ideology. Its mission statement declares “the establishment of the ideological foundations of the postliberal development of Russian society” to be one of its principal goals. 53. Ramchal is the monogram of Moshe Chaim Luzzato (1707–1746), a prominent Italian rabbi and kabbalist. Mordehai Shrike, a rabbi and kabbalist, also participated in the press conference organized by Dugin to condemn the rehabilitation of fascism in Ukraine.

76

Vadim Rossman

54. Alexander Dugin, “Geopolitics of Russia: Athenian lecture,” April 2013, http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=XU0SHO4hDgo. 55. Today Scandinavian identitarianism is mainly represented by writers active in the think tank Motpol and its weblog portal, as well as by the projects and individuals connected therewith. 56. The constituents of GRA include Open Revolt, Green Star, and New Resistance. 57. AnonAF, “Italy’s Millennium attends International Conference in Brazil,” Green Star, September 11, 2012, http://americanfront.info/2012/09/11/italys-millennivm-attends-international-conference-in-brazil/. 58. Alexander Dugin, “Vladimir Putin kak realist,” Zavtra, March 4, 2013. Accessed January 31, 2014, http://zavtra.ru/content/view/vladimir-putin-kak-realist-/. 59. Alexander Dugin, “Chelovek v Kremle. Vladimir Putin: Kritika sverkhu,” Odnako, December 17, 2011, http://www.odnako.org/magazine/material/show_14777/. 60. Andreas Umland, “Evraziiskie proekti Putina i Dugina—skhodstva i razlichiya: ob ideinykh istokakh i politicheskoi roli pravoekstremistskogo intellektualizma v neoavtoritarnoi Rossii,” Kontinent (2012), http://www.academia.edu/1238667/_-_. 61. Andreas Umland, “New Extreme Right-Wing Intellectual Circles in Russia: The AntiOrange Committee, Izborsk Club, and Florian Geyer Club,” Russian Analytical Digest, no. 135 (August 5, 2013). 62. Considering the close ties among the MGU Sociology Department, the International University of Business and Management, and Dugin’s contributions to the cause of Serbian ultra-nationalism, it is also quite possible that his activities are partly funded by the Karić brothers. In 2008 Boleslav Milošević, the elder brother of Slobodan Milošević and former Serbian ambassador to Russia, participated in a round table discussion as a guest speaker at the Center for Conservative Research.

Part II

France, Italy, and Spain: Dugin’s European Cradles

Chapter Four

A Long-Lasting Friendship Alexander Dugin and the French Radical Right Jean-Yves Camus

This chapter assesses the influence of Alexander Dugin on the many different subfamilies of the French radical right. For historical reasons, key leaders and thinkers of the extreme right in Belgium, especially in the French-speaking part of this country, will also be mentioned, although Jean-François Thiriart, the most influential of them, always saw his role as that of a European ideologue who stood above the petty contingency of nationality. The French extreme right has been very successful in the polls, with the nationalist, populist, and anti-immigration Front National (FN), led by Marine Le Pen, receiving more than 20 percent of the vote. In order to reach such a high level of support, the party has had to soften its image and move into mainstream politics, but that shift has alienated the most radical activists. Therefore, small movements and groups remain that do not aim to become a potent electoral force but prefer to cling to the “purity” of the extreme right. The most influential are the Bloc Identitaire, the völkisch racialists of Terre et Peuple (Land and People) group, and the curious mix of anti-Jewish prejudices, conspiracy theories, and Strasserite social thinking that is known as the Egalité et Réconciliation network, led by the novelist Alain Soral. This is where Dugin’s ideas have been discussed and found somewhat of a following. Some of the perennialists, who have interpreted the works of René Guénon and Julius Evola in a political, extreme-right way, are also keen to promote Dugin, but are more interested in his esotericism and antiWestern ideas than in his geopolitical concepts. This chapter also explores the connection between Dugin and the French Nouvelle Droite (New Right), an informal network of think tanks, periodicals, and intellectuals that heavily drew on the ideas of the German Conservative Revolution. Although histori79

80

Jean-Yves Camus

cally the New Right was rooted in the traditional extreme right of the 1960s, it has evolved into a school of thought that promotes anti-egalitarian views and an ethno-differentialist concept of identity. It is definitely not a clever attempt to present fascism in a modern, acceptable form. 1 The New Right, which can hardly be labeled extreme right anymore, is the main conveyor of Dugin’s ideas in France. Dugin has been the most-published foreign radical-right thinker in France since the 1980s. Given the small number of printed publications on the extreme right scene, the rebuttal of the Eurasia theory by hardcore fascist publications (such as the weekly Rivarol), and the lack of interest of other nationalist magazines such as Minute in geopolitics, Dugin’s devoted following is on the Internet, through such websites as the national revolutionary www.voxnr.com, the völkisch/new right www.europemaxima.com, or www.egaliteetreconciliation.fr. Another explanation for his influence is that he speaks very good French and has a wide knowledge of French authors. 2 However, there are other explanations for his popularity with the French extreme right. After all, Jared Taylor, the ideologue of the think tank American Renaissance, is equally fluent in French, but his concept of Western civilization based on race awareness remains marginal. The main reason for Dugin’s influence in France seems to be the old fascination of the French radical right—and of the mainstream Gaullist, conservative right, for that matter—for Russia. The two countries have been allied since before the French Revolution and since 1945 France has tried to steer an independent course in foreign policy that embodies a “third way” between the Western and Eastern blocs and between the United States and Soviet Russia. To the radical right, Russia is a somewhat mysterious country that clings to values that seem to be losing ground in the rapidly changing, some say decaying, Western Europe: a strong ruler and a strong state, nationalism and patriotism, the perpetuation of the idea of the empire, whatever the regime in Moscow; and an influential Christian church that enjoys a privileged relationship with the executive and shapes the mind-set of many on matters pertaining to morality and ethics. All shades of the French radical right believe that Russia, as the last beacon and stronghold of traditional values, has a mission to oppose the decaying religions and societies of the West and regenerate Europe through its influence and model. This line of thinking dates back to the beginning of the twentieth century, when René Guénon and other esotericists looked at the Hindu, Tibetan, or Chinese civilizations as firm holders of the perennial tradition “against the modern world,” as Evola later wrote. It is the same mind-set that drives the small groups of “anti-system” esotericists who have been promoting Dugin since the 1980s and whose best-known “intellectual” was the late writer Jean Parvulesco (1929–2010).

A Long-Lasting Friendship

81

One last reason for Dugin’s positive reception by the French New Right, national revolutionary, and third-way movements is his geopolitics. The word “Eurasia,” in the sense used by Dugin, is a newcomer to the dictionary of the French radical right, but others had previously sensed that the future of Western civilization lay in the immensity of the Russian/Soviet territory. Perhaps the most intriguing assessment of Russia is to be found in the memoirs of French volunteers who fought alongside the German army during World War II. As anti-communist as they were, and as much as their duty was to fight and kill Red Army soldiers, they came back from Russia, Belorussia, and Ukraine impressed with the never-ending landscapes of those countries as well as with the ability of the peasantry to retain its time-honored Slavic character. 3 One former French volunteer, Jean Castrillo, even converted to Orthodoxy and remained active until his death in 2012, promoting the Slavophile movement in his bulletin Militant. DUGIN’S EARLY CONTACTS IN THE FRENCH RADICAL RIGHT (1989–1992) The Front National became a potent political force in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In its quest for respectability, party leaders thought it wise to tone down the national-revolutionary rhetoric that remained strident among a segment of its radical rank-and-file membership. In his quest to locate reputable sister-parties abroad, Jean-Marie Le Pen chose to ally with Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s Liberal-Democratic Party of Russia, visiting him in 1996 before traveling a second time to Russia as Sergei Baburin’s guest. 4 Some national revolutionary members of Front National, however, had a different approach. Gathering around Michel Schneider (Le Pen’s one-time advisor who denounced Le Pen’s alleged “conservative” stand on foreign policy and the economy), they published their own quarterly magazine, Nationalisme et République, from June 1990 until 1992. This publication wanted to go further in the fight against President Boris Yeltsin’s “system” and, being obsessed with the possibility of an alliance between radicals from both ends of the political spectrum, took a national-Bolshevik tilt that led Schneider to attend (and possibly set up) a string of meetings that took place in Moscow in August 1992. There he met Dugin, Viktor Alksnis, Geydar Dzhemal, Baburin, Zhirinovsky, Egor Ligachev, and Alexander Prokhanov. The key figure in the West European delegation was, however, Jean-François Thiriart, the Belgium-born theoretician of the “Greater Europe from Dublin to Vladivostok.” The September 1992 issue of Nationalisme et République seems to contain the first mention of Dugin in a French radical right (not New Right) publication of some significance. The same issue featured a short article about “Our Moscow friend Alexander Dugin, a journalist and publish-

82

Jean-Yves Camus

er very close to our ideas, who took the opportunity of those meetings to present us the first issue of his magazine Elementy.” The article went on to clarify that Elementy was not a Russian version of the similarly named French publication and that it drew inspiration from Thiriart, not de Benoist. Did Schneider, who had left Front National at the time of the 1992 meetings, 5 disseminate some of Dugin’s ideas into the Front National? This is a strong possibility, enhanced by the fact that he lived in Moscow from 1993 until 1997, gaining more firsthand knowledge of Zhirinovsky’s leftist patriotic opposition. However, one must not exaggerate Dugin’s direct influence on the party, as the first documented meeting between Dugin and Front National leaders only occurred on May 31, 2014. 6 A few national-revolutionaries within Front National have been interested in Dugin’s political theories since the 1990s, especially Christian Bouchet, but it was in his capacity as leader of several third-way fringe movements before he joined FN in 2002. 7 This interest is perfectly consistent with the fact that the Front National, now a viable political party instead of a fringe movement, does not need a thorough knowledge of the various shades of Russian nationalism. Its first concern is getting political and financial support from President Vladimir Putin and Russian state structures, in return for unabashedly praising Russian domestic and foreign policy, including the armed conflict with Ukraine, and promoting Russia as the main challenger of the “new world order.” Nationalisme et République also did not care much about the ideological consistency of the very wide range of their Russian contacts. Like Dugin, they still disliked the United States and “Zionism,” approved of the Islamic awakening in the former USSR, and embraced the notion that Europe was to stretch “from Dublin to Vladivostok.” Bouchet has an eclectic approach, promoting Dugin as the Moscow correspondent of his Front Européen de Libération (ELF), but also meeting with communists like Gennadii Zyuganov and Viktor Anpilov. 8 Today, it is difficult to determine exactly what Jean-Marie Le Pen has adopted from Dugin and his concept of Eurasia. While he says that Europe spans the area from Brest (Brittany) to Vladivostok, he also has said that he stands for “a Boreal Europe,” a concept akin to Guillaume Faye’s Eurosiberia and that strongly opposes the inclusion of any non-white, especially Muslim, region or ethnic group into the future continental state. 9 Marine Le Pen, in her capacity as president of FN, has never publicly quoted Dugin. Within the French radical right, Dugin’s ideas have resonated among the disciples of Thiriart, the late leader of the transnational movement Young Europe. Although many on the radical right still quote Thiriart’s main work, Un Empire de 400 millions d’hommes: l’Europe, 10 Young Europe’s French militant base was very small. Thiriart was nonetheless influential in leading some French militants to rethink their ideology and move from a narrowminded worship of the nation-state to the idea of a supranational European

A Long-Lasting Friendship

83

nation-state that would have included the then-communist bloc and the entire former USSR. Young Europe was a political failure, but its legacy must be understood in order to properly assess Dugin’s reception in France. 11 The French radical right underwent a fundamental change in the early 1960s. Young nationalists who were born during or after World War II basically split into two opposite factions. The neofascist faction was first and foremost anti-communist and affirmed the supremacy of the White peoples in the West (including the United States) against those of the Third World. The second faction, which became the New Right in 1968–1969, understood that the era of the colonial empire had passed and quickly adjusted its agenda by redefining the enemy not as the communist bloc, but as “the empire”; that is, the United States and its allies, which sought to rule the world through military power and promoting multiculturalism, free-market economics, and materialism. This faction predicted that U.S. domination would eventually cause the complete downfall of European civilization, both through race mixing and the domination of big finance. The new right and many national-revolutionaries wanted to promote a totally different Weltanschauung—one that would look at the history of the world as a fight between the center and the periphery. Using the geopolitics of Mackinder and Haushofer, the new right, the disciples of Thiriart, and the völkisch and identitarian movements discovered the central role of Russia in fighting U.S. and Western values, regenerating Europe, and supporting all the people and countries outside of Europe that oppose U.S. “imperialism.” After 1982, when he revived the Belgian magazine Conscience européenne, Thiriart re-evaluated his previous writings, shunning anti-communism and focusing on anti-Americanism. In the early 1990s, he realized that the collapse of the USSR could give a new start to his project, a conclusion similar to those of the New Right. Robert Steuckers claims he introduced Thiriart to Nationalisme et République and told Dugin, in March 1992, that Thiriart would agree to lecture in Moscow the following summer. 12 Another indication of the convergence between the New Right and Thiriarites is that former Young Europe militants and individuals influenced by Thiriart have achieved prominent positions in new right circles. This includes Steuckers; Luc Pauwels, head of the Flemish Stichting Deltapers and new right Tekos magazine; and Jean-Claude Jacquard, a former head of the French branch of Young Europe who in 1992 became president of GRECE (Groupement de recherche et d’études sur la civilisation européenne). Thiriart’s legacy includes his theory of the “necessary outside lung”; that is, a foreign country or secessionist area that can be used as a political, financial, or logistical base; a refuge from repression in the militants’ native country; or a training ground for future “direct action.” 13 For the European extreme right, the USSR and Russia were the main “outside lung,” until the 1993 anti-Yeltsin putsch ruined their hopes. In line with Dugin, the European

84

Jean-Yves Camus

Liberation Front and its Russian branch, the Arktogeia publishing house, 14 also promoted other potential “outside lungs,” such as Libya and Iran. According to French historian Nicolas Lebourg, Dugin wants to “connect the Third Rome, the Third Reich, and the Third International in a revolt against the Modern world.” 15 This would be consistent with Thiriart’s alleged involvement with the pre-war German National-Bolshevik movement Fichte Bund and, later in Belgium, with the pro-Nazi group Amis du Grand Reich Allemand (AGRA). While the common parentage of Dugin’s Fourth Political Theory and Thiriart is obvious, the concept of “Europe from Dublin to Vladivostok” is vague and allows for endless controversies about where the border between Europe and Asia should be drawn. As a consequence, different factions of the French radical right agree that Europe should mean an authoritarian, unified state but they strongly disagree on whether this United Europe should include the Muslim population of the former USSR or, on grounds of Aryan racial purity, exclude all non-Caucasian ethnic groups. In France, this has become the topic of heated debates within radical right circles, especially after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States and because of the debate over Muslim immigration. There are French followers of Dugin who still promote his and Thiriart’s theory that all the Soviet successor states are part of Eurasia, regardless of the fact that their population is not ethnically European. Led by Bouchet and de Benoist, they cling to the Eurasia concept because they think Islam is a “traditional” religion in the sense of Guénon and Evola. Yet, other individuals who were influenced by Thiriart, most notably Steuckers and Guillaume Faye, support the idea of an Imperial Europe stretching far beyond Moscow (generally the Ural Mountains are the border), but they stick to an ethnic definition of Eurasia that excludes the Caucasus and Central Asia. Those are the promoters of the Eurosiberia theory, including small völkisch groups like Pierre Vial’s Terre et Peuple and Richard Roudier’s Réseau identités. 16 DUGIN AND THE FRENCH NEW RIGHT The national-revolutionary, the National-Bolshevik and the new right subfamilies of the radical right promote a distinct political or metapolitical agenda. However, many prominent militants within those subgroups have migrated from one movement to another, written for publications that belong to one or the other faction, or spoken at events that draw attendees from all segments of the spectrum. Bouchet was a member of GRECE in the early 1990s; Steuckers joined in 1973, became assistant editor of Nouvelle École in 1981, and then left in 1992; Guillaume Faye belonged to GRECE between 1971 and 1987 and was one of the group’s key thinkers in the 1980s. GRECE and the New Right focus on metapolitics, not party politics. De Benoist’s indefat-

A Long-Lasting Friendship

85

igable intellectual curiosity, together with his relentless search for new allies in his fight against “the Empire,” naturally propelled him toward Dugin’s works. Thus, the New Right was the first French movement that attracted Dugin’s interest and the first to disseminate his ideas. There are conflicting accounts about how and when Dugin first met de Benoist, as Anton Shekhovtsov showed in his chapter. Vera Nikolski, relying on Dugin’s own account, dates this to 1989, yet it is unclear whether Dugin came on his own and met with de Benoist after finding him by chance, or if Yuri Mamleev’s network of Russian émigrés in Paris introduced the young Pamyat member to New Right circles. 17 Alain de Benoist states his first encounter with Dugin took place on June 28, 1990, in the Paris area, while the Russian activist was on his first European tour. 18 He says they met “through an Italian friend,” probably Claudio Mutti. The main thinker of the French New Right admits that he then knew “almost nothing” about Dugin and “not much more” about the Eurasianist movement, except the writings of one of its founding fathers, Nikolai Trubetzkoy (1890–1938). Eurasianism is not even mentioned in de Benoist’s magnum opus Vu de droite, which nevertheless had an entry on geopolitics, with a reference to Sir Halford John Mackinder’s Heartland theory and Karl Haushofer’s Raumsinn concept. 19 De Benoist’s only knowledge of the Russian nationalist movement came, he said, from reading Alexander Yanov’s Russian New Right, and John B. Dunlop’s Faces of Contemporary Russian Nationalism. 20 Yet in the early 1980s de Benoist was much more ready to receive Dugin’s ideas than the rest of the French far right, simply because he was much more an anti-egalitarian and anti-American than a reactionary anti-communist. For example, since 1982 he has been attacked for writing, “There are people who do not give up to the idea of wearing the Red Army cap one day. True, this is not a pleasant future. This being said, we cannot think about spending the rest of our lives eating hamburgers in the Brooklyn area.” 21 Soon after their first meeting, de Benoist invited Dugin to speak at the annual conference of GRECE on March 24, 1991. 22 Next, de Benoist and Steuckers visited Moscow from March 25 to April 3, 1992. The trip was arranged by Dugin and enabled the New Right leaders to meet Egor Ligachev, Vladimir Ossipov, Zyuganov, members of the Moscow Duma, and General Nikolai Klokotov in the offices of the Russian Military Academy, ending with a press conference in the offices of Prokhanov’s magazine, Den’. Such a wide range of contacts is the consequence of de Benoist’s personal curiosity and pursuit of lively dialogue. The main differences between de Benoist and Dugin mostly lie in the realm of religion, as de Benoist is a pagan and a critic of all monotheistic religions. What unites the two men however, is a profound disgust for materialism and capitalism, disdain for the bourgeois way of thinking, and a belief that Europe can be revitalized only by a spiritual influx from civilizations that reject the decay of the West.

86

Jean-Yves Camus

De Benoist shares Dugin’s geopolitical concept of Eurasia. Following Carl Schmitt, he believes that Eurasia is a land power (Heartland) that historically has opposed naval powers such as Great Britain and the United States. 23 He believes that Russian identity “was born out of an original blend between Slavs of Turks-Muslims.” He likes the fact that Eurasianists “positively re-evaluate the legacy of Gengis Khan and the Golden Horde”; that is, “the Turanian heritage” mixed with Russian Orthodoxy. He furthermore adds that Dugin’s ideology is particularly interesting because “unlike the mainstream Nationalists and the Slavophiles, [he] looks at the Soviet legacy as the continuation of the Imperial idea in another form.” Furthermore, Dugin “confronts the rise of postmodernity by proposing an anti-Western geopolicy, grounded in the culturalist idea and the principle of Identity which applies to all people alike.” That is why, when Dugin launched Elementy in 1992, de Benoist, Mutti, and Steuckers joined the editorial board. It was obvious from the first issue that the magazine presented itself as part of the New Right pan-European network. Page three of the first issue prominently featured the covers of the two major publications of the French New Right, Éléments and Nouvelle École, alongside Steuckers’s Orientations and Punto y Coma, published in Spain by José Javier Esparza. 24 The first issue included an article by Charles Champetier, then the young rising star of the French New Right, as well as a transcript of a debate on “Russia, Germany, and the Others,” held in Moscow among de Benoist, Nikolai Klokotov, Nikolai Pitsev, and Jean Laloux, editor of the New Right magazine Krisis, which sought to be a forum for dialogue with anti-liberal leftist intellectuals. Other French-speaking contributors later appeared: the traditionalist Christophe Levalois (number 2) 25; Jean Parvulesco (number 3); Luc Michel (number 4); Trystan Mordrelle (number 5) 26; Ange Sampieru (number 7) 27; and Jean-Marc Vivenza (number 7). 28 The contribution of French-speaking authors to Milyi Angel was less visible, probably because of its heavy focus on esotericism. The magazine featured interviews or articles with Jean Biès, a disciple of Guénon; Philippe Baillet, a former member of GRECE and the leading Evola specialist in France. A close look at Elementy suggests that de Benoist distanced himself from Dugin and the magazine after 1993, probably because he was disenchanted by the narrow-mindedness of the Russian nationalists he met in Moscow and because of the content of the magazine. The fist issue had the Celtic cross flag on its cover, and subsequent issues heavily borrowed from Nazi iconography, which could have been used against the New Right and himself at a time when the media was already presenting GRECE and de Benoist as fascists in disguise that the left should avoid. The campaign in Le Monde against the so-called red-brown alliance came at a time when Krisis began to receive contributions from politicians and intellectuals associated with the alternative left. 29 At the same time (May 1993) the newspaper L’Idiot inter-

A Long-Lasting Friendship

87

national, led by the novelist Jean-Edern Hallier, 30 published a “Manifesto for a National Front” that was seen as grounds for cooperation among hardline communists; the New Right, supporters of Le Pen’s Front National, and militants of the alternative left. The success of such an attempt could only be possible if de Benoist stayed away from his most radical friends. Although he did sever his ties with Dugin, the red-brown attempt failed, leaving the new right more isolated than before. Steuckers chose another path. 31 After leaving GRECE in December 1992, he set up a network named Synergies européennes, whose publications were Vouloir (founded in 1983) and Nouvelles de Synergies européennes (founded in 1994). His group rallied former followers of the Front européen de libération, among them Marco Battarra, and dissidents from GRECE. Both magazines retained a strong interest in geopolitics and Russia, occasionally quoting Dugin and his publications. However, the Russian correspondents of the Synergies network, Pavel Tulaev and Vladimir Avdeev, had a periodical, Nasledie Predkov, with a neo-pagan, racialist ideology that was closer to the Eurosiberia concept than to Dugin’s Eurasia. DUGIN’S REVIVED FRENCH NETWORKS Since the early 2010s Russia has become a reference point for the French extreme right, a model country that opposes liberalism, the unipolar world, materialism, and almost every aspect of democracy. Since the SocialistGreen coalition came to power in May 2012, the nationalist right has considered it mandatory to be received in Russia or at least get some kind of recognition and support from various circles close to the Putin regime. At the fringes of the extreme right, the world is increasingly seen as divided between the “system” (liberal democracy) and the “outcasts” (anyone that opposes liberal democracy). The system is the center, while its opponents are the periphery. The extreme right, and even part of the anti-liberal right (the so-called souverainistes) identify with the periphery, where they locate Russia as well as other countries hostile toward the United States. However, there is another explanation for the revival of contacts between Dugin and the French far right; namely, the growing personal and political isolation of Bouchet and de Benoist. The activists Dugin meets while touring France are being pushed even further to the political margins, consigned to the realm of insignificant grouplets that mostly exist through the Internet and social networks. He also seems to enjoy a new popularity within perennialist circles whose functioning and world outlook are in many ways reminiscent of what Dugin learned in his days with the Yuzhinsky Circle. Dugin reconnected with the New Right in 2005. He has very few contacts with orthodox followers of Thiriart, who today belong to the very small and

88

Jean-Yves Camus

almost dormant Parti Communautaire National-Européen (PCN) led by Luc Michel in Belgium. The movement used to have a French branch, run by former militants of Bouchet’s Nouvelle Résistance, but they parted ways in 1996. The PCN, which sees itself as a national-communist movement and objects to the extreme-right label, agrees with Dugin on the geopolitical concept of Eurasia but it has no interest in theosophy, religion, or tradition. It is a small pressure group that has promoted various regimes seen as part of the “Axis of Evil,” such as Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya. It is now acting on behalf of Belarus, supporting the policies of President Aliaksandr Lukashenka, and has ties with the secessionist authorities of Transnistria. 32 Michel also organized an unofficial observer team to monitor the March 2014 elections in Crimea. Although Dugin’s texts could still be found on the party’s pitiful website as of late 2014, it appears that there are no personal contacts. Christian Bouchet remains the most faithful French follower of Dugin. He has been active in many extreme-right movements since the 1970s, starting with the Royalist Action Française, continuing with GRECE, and finally leading the national revolutionary groups Alternative tercériste, Nouvelle résistance, Unité radicale, and Réseau radical. He is very close to Avatar éditions, which publishes Dugin in French, and is the founder of Ars Magna, which published Dugin’s La Quatrième théorie politique in 2012 and Pour une théorie du monde multipolaire in 2013. However, Bouchet has been in and out of Front National since the mid-1990s. Since Marine Le Pen became FN president in 2011, he has held various mid-level positions in the party; in March 2014 he topped the party list for the mayoral election of Nantes, a city of 400,000, but collected less than 10 percent of the votes. The failure of the last group he led, Unité radicale, which was banned by the French authorities in 2002, caused him to return to FN, while trying to continue his own New Right activity on a low-key basis, through the now-defunct newsletter Résistance!, the Ars Magna and Avatar publishing houses, and the Réseau Géopolitique Européen. Bouchet and Dugin have co-sponsored many events, including one in Paris in January 2011 on the topic “Why we should love Vladimir Putin.” It was organized by the now defunct Flash magazine, an anticonformist bimonthly whose leading contributors were de Benoist, Bouchet, and Alain Soral. The “conference” was held in a Paris pub owned by Charles-Alban Schepens, from the neofascist Renouveau français and the anti-Jewish Parti Antisioniste. On October 29, 2012, Bouchet and Dugin held another public meeting in Bordeaux on “Eurasia as an alternative to Liberal Democracy.” That conference was convened by Soral and his group, Egalité et Réconciliation (E&R). Alain Soral is an active new member of Dugin’s network. A novelist of some fame and a former rank-and-file member of the Communist Party, this self-described former Marxist switched allegiance to the Front National in

A Long-Lasting Friendship

89

2005 and was a member of its Central Committee from 2007 until he left in 2009. He became a close advisor to the Le Pen family during the 2007 presidential campaign, convincing them to reach out to Muslim voters who were disillusioned with the left and whose “Anti-Zionism” and conservative moral values might draw them to the nationalist right. Soral also coined the New Right’s new motto: “We are the Left of Labor and the Right of Values.” After he was dropped from the FN party list for the 2009 regional election in Paris, Soral turned his attention to Egalité et Réconciliation and joined the Parti Antisioniste along with the convicted anti-Semite comedian, Dieudonné M’Bala M’Bala. Soral gained fame as a theoretician of geopolitics with his best-seller Comprendre l’Empire, 33 which is ridden with conspiracy theories aiming to show that globalization is a Jewish attempt at controlling the world through U.S. domination. This obsession with the United States and Israel explains why Soral has praised Dugin on the Egalité et Réconciliation website, where he also posted videos from him and reprinted several of his articles. Both Dugin and Soral see themselves as the only voices of dissent against the capitalist system and the despised new world order. Across Europe, regular transnational events are held where dissenters voice their alternative theories on history (about revisionism and World War II), race and ethnicity, or geopolitics. For example Bouchet, Dugin, and Soral spoke in Madrid at the “Day of the Dissidents,” organized by neo-Falangist circles on November 9–11, 2007. Soral has praised Dugin’s work, calling The Fourth Political Theory “a true warfare manual . . . [it] is complementary to my own book Comprendre l’Empire. It shows that building a multipolar world, built upon genuine values, will only be possible by turning our back against this pro-NATO West and its fake values.” 34 However, there are clear differences between the two men. For example, while in France, Dugin spoke alongside Jewish Orthodox rabbis who are into Kabbalah teaching and belong either to the Haredi or to the Zionist-religious movement. On January 9, 2011, on the occasion of the sixtieth anniversary of Guénon’s death, the Tikkoun Olam Center, led by Rav Leo Guez from Nice, convened a conference whose main speakers were Dugin; Bouchet; Avigdor Eskin, a militant of the Israeli extreme right Kahana Haï movement; and the renowned Jerusalem Kabbalist, Rav Mordekhai Chriqui. The goal of the meeting was to bring together Jews and Christians who aim at countering modernity. The dialogue was flawed, though, because Dugin’s vision of Judaism falsely opposes what he calls exoteric Judaism (which he opposes because of its “materialistic” spirit) and esoteric Judaism (that is, Kabbalah), which he praises as being part of Guénon’s primordial tradition. The rabidly anti-Jewish Soral would never have attended such a meeting and, based on what was said that day, Dugin, at least when he was speaking before a French audience, appeared to have toned down his anti-Semitism.

90

Jean-Yves Camus

De Benoist still disseminates Dugin’s works through his publications: Élements, Nouvelle École, and Krisis. However, GRECE lost most of its membership and visibility in the late 1990s after its key ideologues on ethnic matters, those who were the most dedicated to promoting the actual IndoEuropean heritage of today’s Europe, defected to the Front National, where they thought they would be able to efficiently put their ideas into political action. With Jean-Yves Le Gallou, Jean Haudry, and Pierre Vial following their own path, de Benoist has been free to focus on his two major ideological concerns: fighting the domination of free-market values and the hegemony of the United States and NATO on the reunified European continent. Dugin remains the Russian correspondent for Nouvelle École, the thick annual theoretical publication of the New Right, with Moscow State University Professor Vladimir Dobrenkov the only Russian scholar on the editorial board. That may explain why in November 2008, de Benoist was invited to speak in Moscow at an international gathering of the Eurasianist Movement. In September 2009, Dugin invited de Benoist to St. Petersburg, where he presented the translation of his book Protiv liberalisma (a collection of de Benoist’s papers compiled for the Russian audience) and gave a lecture on Carl Schmitt’s concept of “Nomos of the Earth.” Dugin and the New Right have also attracted a new generation of esotericists who have a very radical reading of Guénon and place their hope for the regeneration of Europe in Dugin’s vision of Orthodoxy. A good example is the conference that took place in Paris on May 25, 2013, to spread the word about “The Eurasian Way.” Dugin spoke on the topic of “Eurasia yesterday and today”; de Benoist’s speech was on “Eurasia against Liberalism”; and novelist Laurent James talked about “Eurasia and Spirituality.” A quick look at James’ ramblings on his blog 35 show an obsessive concern with the Jews (he is close to the Parti Antisioniste and Egalité et Réconciliation) 36 as well as a very confused ideology. The mainstream guénoniens and the small group of Evola’s followers (the most notorious of whom is Philippe Baillet) have no connections with Dugin. Instead, some of Dugin’s contacts refer to the writings of a self-styled traditionalist and proponent of the “hidden hand in history” theory: Jean Parvulesco. Dugin paid tribute to this Romanianborn exile at a ceremony at his grave in Boulogne-Billancourt near Paris on November 23, 2012. Parvulesco is the author of many abstruse novels influenced by Raymond Abellio’s Gnosis and by national revolutionary ideas. Keen on suggesting that he was influential within the intelligence community, presenting himself as a self-proclaimed prophet of a non-orthodox Gaullist foreign policy that would have included an alliance with Russia and China, Parvulesco is the author of a 2005 book entitled Vladimir Poutine et l’Eurasie. Dugin seems to go wherever he is invited, regardless of the ideological affiliation of the organizers and his fellow panelists. For example, after the

A Long-Lasting Friendship

91

Parvulesco ceremony (which was performed by a traditionalist Roman Catholic priest, Father Guillaume de Tanouarn), Dugin spoke at another tribute alongside Arnaud Guyot-Jeannin and Laurent James, who belong to the small circle of Guénon’s disciples within the New Right; Michel Marmin, who is aligned with the neo-pagan faction of GRECE; the Italian neo-Nazi turned Muslim convert Claudio Mutti; and Arnaud Bordes, an underground novelist who is close to both the New Right and the national-revolutionaries. On November 24, 2012, Dugin spoke at Center Saint-Paul, the Parisbased headquarters of Father de Tanouarn’s Institut du Bon Pasteur. The topic was “The Greater Europe and the West: Perspectives for a Spiritual Revolution.” The speakers were David Mascré and Philippe Darentière, both traditionalist Catholics. The former, a low-level employee at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was a member of the Front National leadership until he was thrown out in July 2012 on charges of being untrustworthy. The latter was a key figure in the Printemps français, the anti-gay-rights movement that emerged in autumn 2012 as an umbrella organization for Catholics, identitaires, and other far rightists opposed to the law on same-sex marriage passed in 2013 by the Socialist government. What conclusion can be reached from this seemingly incoherent string of conferences that increasingly involve second-rank players on the extremeright scene? It may simply be that Dugin is guaranteed to draw (small) crowds to events that would otherwise have a miniscule turnout. 37 Others will certainly draw the opposite conclusion and say that Dugin is the key organizer of the Russian PR network within the radical-right milieu. They will point to Darentière’s background as an army intelligence officer or to the existence of pro-Kremlin groups in France that stand at the crossroads between politics and underground activities, such as the Novopole movement and Collectif France-Russie, both led by André Chanclu, a former paramilitary activist from the neofascist Ordre Nouveau movement in the 1970s. Chanclu writes: “One Russian thinker has shown us which path to follow, that is Dugin. He reminds us that the development of this new ideology he named the Fourth Theory will not be the work of a single individual. We have decided to answer this call in order to feed this ideological ground.” 38 When Novopole and the Collectif demonstrated in Paris on February 16, 2013, against Pussy Riot, a feminist Russian punk rock group, they claimed that “members of the Russian embassy staff were there with us,” which is true. 39 This looks closer to a propaganda statement than to an assessment of Dugin’s works by someone who has carefully read his books and developed a coherent ideology. It may be more accurate to say that instead of being true Dugin devotees, extreme rightists in France may drop Dugin’s name to court circles within the Russian state apparatus in exchange for some kind of status, funding, and access to Putin and his administration. Finally, the exponential growth in the

92

Jean-Yves Camus

number of French extreme-right-related websites and blogs is definitely connected to the pro-Russian lobbying of this ideological family, especially since the Crimea and Ukraine conflicts broke out. Two of these websites propagate and support Dugin’s theories and have a following that goes beyond the narrow confines of extreme-right fringe groups. The most interesting one is Georges Feltin-Tracol’s Europamaxima, 40 while Dissonances, Alexandre Latsa’s blog, has echoed Dugin’s view in a positive way. 41 Living in Russia, Latsa is somewhat of a “rising star” among the French journalists who report from Russia and stands halfway between the mainstream conservatives and the more radical right. EURO-SIBERIA: OPPOSING DUGIN’S THEORIES ON RACIALIST GROUNDS Dugin’s main impact on the French extreme right has been to popularize the concept of “Eurasia,” mostly with the constant help of de Benoist and Bouchet. He also stirs the most strident controversy within the extreme-right family over his concept of Eurasia and, sometimes, his personality. According to Robert Spieler, leader of the Nouvelle Droite Populaire: The fact that there are people among us who promote his ideas looks like a fantasy to me. They have probably paid too much attention to the (fascinating, at that) biography of Baron Ungern, especially the one by Jean Mabire. I spent two days with Dugin in Antwerp and Brussels, five or six years ago, on the occasion of a meeting organized by Tekos, a magazine more or less akin to Terre et Peuple. The magazine is run by my friend Hilde de Lobel, formerly a Vlaams Belang MP. Dugin has a pope’s beard and made the sign of the cross five or six times before drinking a beer. He’s an interesting fellow, with a very vivid intelligence. At least we have a common interest in science fiction. I made him discover that Jean Ray, whom he loves very much, and John Flanders (Harry Dickson) are the same person. 42

Others have a less scornful—but no less negative—attitude toward Dugin. The concept of Eurasia has been challenged by another French ideologue, Guillaume Faye, who was the number two man at GRECE during the 1980s. For Faye, as well as Pierre Vial and the Bloc identitaire, 43 Eurasia must be fought against because it includes Muslim people who have no right whatsoever to claim any say in the future of Europe. Faye’s rival concept, Eurosiberia, has gained ground within the French extreme right and what remains of Steuckers’ following, simply because it is easy to understand: Eurosiberia means a White Europe that would include only the portion of Russia inhabited primarily by White people. Muslims, thus the Caucasus and Central Asia, are to be excluded from any alliance between Russia and Europe, on the grounds that today, Europe is fighting for

A Long-Lasting Friendship

93

its very soul and ethnic stock against the “Muslim invasion” brought by immigration. Faye has disseminated his concept in Russia through Pavel Tulaev’s website, Ateney. 44 In his 2004 book, Le coup d’État mondial, Faye suggested another name for his concept—Septentrion, which appeals more clearly to those racialists who believe in the true historical existence of Hyperborea and the circumpolar origin of the Indo-Europeans. The “intellectual” segment of the French extreme right contains both fans and foes of Dugin. When we look at the militant segment, however, given the strength of the Bloc identitaire (by far the most consistent group, with between 1,000 and 2,000 affiliated members), there is no doubt the Eurosiberia concept has an edge. Philippe Vardon, one of the leaders of the identitaires, summed up the topic of Dugin’s influence this way: “Neither Fabrice Robert [the other key figure in the party] nor myself are very reliable on, or great fans of Dugin. His thinking remains rather unknown here, and many people do not care that much about him, after all.” 45 CONCLUSION Dugin’s influence is strongest on the ideological avant-garde of the French Radical Right; that is, the National-Revolutionaries and the New Right. The latter has distanced itself from its fringe political roots, however it still keeps an interest in the National-Revolutionaries because, in its opinion, they remain innovative. Robert Steuckers once stated, “I think that the NationalRevolutionary fringe groups are interesting because they are buzzing with new ideas that stand at the margin of the conformist political world, as do the Leftists, the Radical Environnmentalists, or the Anarchists, or even the literary and artistic avant-gardes. That is why I have always taken part in their activities and will continue to do so.” 46 This kind of thinking is certainly good for those whose main interest is in metapolitics, but it is a problem for Dugin, who wants to influence decisionmakers in Russia and Europe, not the lunatic fringe on the far-right scene. Dugin’s reputation on the radical right is that he has an influence on President Putin and his foreign policy. But does he, really? When it comes to influencing policymakers in France and lobbying for Russian interests, the Kremlin seems to rely more on a Paris-based think tank, the Institut de la Démocratie et de la Coopération (IDC), led by a former member of the State Duma (Rodina faction), Natalia Narochnitskaya, than on Dugin’s networks. This is because the IDC, which heavily draws its idea from Rogozin’s political agenda, can speak to a broader spectrum of elected officials, Catholic traditionalists, Slavophile academics, entrepreuneurs and right-wing politicians like Yvan Blot—a GRECE member, then Gaullist, and later FN MP.

94

Jean-Yves Camus

The key concept of a Paris-Berlin-Moscow axis against U.S. influence is also more effectively promoted by IDC than by Dugin. 47 Also, when the Kremlin approved a €9 million loan granted by the First Czech Russian Bank in 2014, the money went to a party, the Front National, which polls more than 20 percent nationwide and aims at ruling the country. Whatever financial support some radical-right groups and publications may receive from Russian sources—that are yet to be precisely identified—comes in much smaller amounts and does not raise the same expectations for a political reward. In return, FN leaders try to speak with Russian officials as equals and up to now, have shunned Dugin, thus depriving him of any influence in the only radical-right political party in France that might rise to power in the years to come. NOTES 1. This interpretation is supported by Roger Griffin and Tamir Bar-On. See Roger Griffin, “Between Metapolitics and Apoliteia: The Nouvelle Droite’s Strategy for Conserving the Fascist Vision in the ‘Interregnum,’” in Modern and Contemporary France 8 (2000): 35–53 and Tamir Bar-On, Rethinking the French New Right: Alternatives to Modernity (New York: Routledge, 2013). 2. For example, in Dugin’s 2010 book, Golos i mifos. Glubinnoe regionovedenie, the bibliography includes more than two hundred titles in a language other than Russian; eightyseven of these are French. French authors whose works published in Russian are in the bibliography include Raymond Aron, Alain de Benoist, Jean Bodin, Louis Dumont, Lucien LévyBruhl, and Michel Foucault. René Guénon is, of course, given a prominent place in both the Russian and foreign-language bibliographies. 3. Pierre Ruscone, a French Waffen-SS volunteer, writes: “We have to admit we fell under Russia’s spell. It is a country without limits, with neverending horizons, thus giving us the illusion of a conqueror’s life.” Pierre Rusco: Stoï (Paris: Dualpha, 2006), 307. Another SS volunteer, Marc Augier, who under the pen name of Saint Loup became the leading postwar writer of the French völkisch movement, declared: “The Russian people will be able to accomplish great things, at least the peasants. They are not mellowed, they have not become complete morons. They are hard-working, uncomplicated, brave in front of death and imbued with the ancient virtue of humility.” Les partisans (Paris: Denoel, 1943), 121. 4. See Le Pen’s interview with: L’Observateur du monde russe, August 12, 2014. Accessed February 1, 2015, http://lemonderusse.canalblog.com/archives/2014/08/12/30398282. html. 5. Schneider returned to the FN as a middle-level executive in 1994–1998, quit again, then returned yet again between 2002 and 2004. 6. Marion Le Pen, the junior member of parliament for FN, and Aymeric Chauprade, FN’s MEP, represented the party. The May 31, 2014, meeting took place in Vienna under the aegis of Konstantin Malofeev’s St. Basil’s Foundation. It was convened in order to commemorate the two hundredth anniversary of the Holy Alliance. It was first reported in the Swiss daily Tages Anzeiger on June 3, 2014. 7. On Bouchet’s ideology in the 1990s, see J.Y. Camus, “Une avant-garde populiste: ‘peuple’ et ‘nation’ dans le discours de Nouvelle résistance,” Mots, no 55 (June 1998): 128–38. 8. See Christian Bouchet, Les Nouveau nationalistes (Paris: Déterna, 2001). In 1998, Bouchet’s publishing house, Ars Magna, devoted a small brochure to exposing the ideas of Pamyat: Pamyat parle: le Natsional-Patriotitcheski Front. The brochure does not mention Dugin. 9. Interview with Observateur du monde russe.

A Long-Lasting Friendship

95

10. Jean Thiriart, Un Empire de 400 millions d’hommes: l’Europe (1964; repr., Paris: Avatar, 2004). 11. The movement was originally named Jeune Europe, then changed its name to La Nation européenne in 1967 before dissolving in 1969. 12. Robert Steuckers, ”Hommage à Jean Thiriart,” Voxnr, July 4, 2002. Accessed February 14, 2015, http://www.voxnr.com/cc/d_thiriart/EpkyVAElkVXDVMELnk.shtml. 13. Here the support of the Unité continentale, a pro-Eurasianist group of volunteers fighting for Novorossiya, a secessionist portion of Ukraine, obviously comes to mind. The group refers to Dugin and explains, “His ideas are heard among all factions of the Nationalist scene.” Posted on the group’s Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/unite.continentale on April 24, 2014. 14. See Lutte du peuple, no. 20 (February 1994). This was the magazine of the Nouvelle résistance movement, led by Bouchet. 15. “Moscou-Paris-Vienne: les rencontres d’Aymeric Chauprade, conseiller de Marine Le Pen,” Droite(s) Extreme(s), June 4, 2014. Accessed February 14, 2015, http://droites-extremes.blog.lemonde.fr/2014/06/04/moscou-paris-vienne-les-rencontres-daymeric-chaupradeconseiller-de-marine-le-pen/. 16. In his speech at the Bloc identitaire convention on immigration, which took place in Paris on November 15, 2014 (Assises de la Remigration), Faye explained that Russian citizens should be among those foreigners who would be allowed to immigrate to France, were his policies to be implemented by the state. This is quite contradictory to his stand that only Caucasians would be eligible for a visa. 17. Vera Nikolski, National-bolchevisme et néo-eurasisme dans la Russie contemporaine (Paris: Mare et Martin, 2013), 221–22. 18. Alain de Benoist, “Preface,” in Alexander Dugin, L’appel de l’Eurasie (Paris: Avatar, 2013). 19. Alain de Benoist, Vu de droite (Paris: Editions du Laberynthe, 1977). 20. De Benoist wrote about the book in Le Figaro Magazine, October 6, 1979. Alexander Yanov, Russian New Right (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978); John B. Dunlop, Faces of Contemporary Russian Nationalism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983). 21. Orientations pour des années décisives (Paris: Le Labyrinthe, 1982), 76. 22. Nation et Empire. Histoire et Concept. Proceedings of the Twenty-fourth National Colloquium of GRECE, Paris, March 24, 1991 (GRECE, 1991). 23. De Benoist, “Preface.” 24. In issue number 3 (1993), the same technique was used, showing Orion, Nouvelle école, Milyi Angel, Steuckers’s magazine Vouloir, and the German magazine Criticon, a more mainstream national-conservative publication led by Caspar Von Schrenck-Notzing. 25. Levalois was a Catholic esotericist and published the Sol invictus magazine. He has converted to Orthodoxy and has been ordained by the Patriarchal Exarchate for Orthodox Parishes of Russian Tradition in Western Europe. 26. He is the son of Olier Mordrelle, leader of the interwar autonomist movement in Brittany, who sought support for the independence of his province from the Nazis, although he was himself influenced by the Conservative Revolution. Trystan Mordrelle launched a revisionist magazine, L’autre histoire, but is now close to the Identitaires. 27. Probably an alias, using a name from Corsica. Sampieru was a frequent contributor to Steuckers’ Vouloir. 28. Vivenza is best known as a musicologist and composer of industrial music. He is also a traditionalist inspired by Guénon, Evola, and traditional Masonry. 29. On May 12, 1992, de Benoist spoke at a meeting of the Institut de Recherches Marxistes, a think tank of the Communist Party. 30. Limonov contributed, as did Alain Soral, another Dugin supporter. 31. He now posts regularly at: http://euro-synergies.hautetfort.com/. 32. On the PCN and Russia, see “Interview de Luc Michel par Fabrice Beaur,” Justice Sociale blog, September 26, 2012. Accessed February 14, 2015, http://europeunitairedemocratesocialiste.over-blog.com/article-pcn-tv-moscou-interview-de-luc-michel-pa-110558556.html.

96

Jean-Yves Camus

33. Alain Soral, Comprendre l’Empire (Paris: Editions Blanche, 2011). 34. “Il faut lire Alexandre Dougine,” Egalité et Reconciliation, October 14, 2012. Accessed February 14, 2015, http://www.eraquitaine.fr/il-faut-lire-alexandre-douguine/. 35. http://parousia-parousia.blogspot.fr. 36. See : http://www.egaliteetreconciliation.fr/Entretien-avec-Laurent-James-3018.html. 37. Author’s observation at the Guénon Memorial event in January 2011. 38. “Pourquoi Novopole?”, Novopole, January 20, 2013, http://novopole.org/?p=18. The website does not work anymore. 39. See http://novopole.org/?p=76. 40. See ”La Russie aux temps postmodernes par Georges Feltin-Tracol,” Europe Maxima, February 24, 2013. Accessed February 16, 2015, http://www.europemaxima.com/?p=2958. 41. http://alexandrelatsa.blogspot.fr/2009/03/alexandre-douguine-par-alexandre-latsa.html. 42. Author’s interview with Robert Spieler, September 27, 2013. 43. Philippe Vardon, co-leader of the Bloc identitaire, explains: “Neither Fabrice Robert nor myself really know much about Dugin, nor are we real fans of him. One could say that within our political family, most people simply do not care.” E-mail to the author, October 4, 2013. 44. See http://www.ateney.ru. 45. Author’s interview with Philippe Vardon, October 4, 2013. 46. Correspondence with the author, March 13, 2002. 47. The Association Paris-Berlin-Moscou, led by Henri de Grossouvre, is another minor player in this field and stands at the crossroads between the New Right, neo-Gaullist circles, and the conservative right.

Chapter Five

From Evola to Dugin The Neo-Eurasianist Connection in Italy Giovanni Savino

The modern ideology of the far right and the doctrine of fascism are in large part the product of the Italian political and social situation in the aftermath of World War I. Starting in 1919, fascist and neofascist movements in Italy produced a range of organizations, circles, and trends influenced by esoteric themes, including paganism. Differences among the types of fascism articulated between 1922 and 1943, during the Italian Social Republic, the Nazicollaborationist state under Mussolini, and the Wehrmacht partly explain the varying approaches in postwar Italy. According to political scientist Marco Revelli, the fascism of the Italian Social Republic opposed modern civilization and instead acted as a warriors’ community, firmly united by myths of honor and loyalty. 1 The Cold War also influenced the development of neofascism in Italy, with various secret networks working to block communist expansion. NATO put into place Operation Gladio, a clandestine, “stay-behind” military network ready to mobilize against a Soviet invasion. Units reportedly were left throughout Southern Europe, with the Italian branch, Gladio, perhaps the best known. 2 Many militants were also involved in the so-called strategy of tension in the 1960s and 1970s, whereby social unrest was provoked so that uneasy citizens would prefer a strong government. The leftist student movements of 1968 influenced far-right activists, too. The relevance of the Italian experience within a larger European and global framework is still a valid research issue, and over the last forty years the French New Right and the new rightist tendencies in Russia have been the most important developments. 97

98

Giovanni Savino

In the late 1980s, the USSR experienced a new conservative-revolutionary regeneration. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 provided a further opening for rightist and fascist ideologies. Writing in 2003, Claudio Mutti cited the Diary of Pierre Drieu La Rochelle to explain his hopes that a new superpower would emerge, a kind of Soviet Union without Marxism and ruled by tradition. Mutti described the relationship between Fascist Italy and the USSR as one marked with a kind of sympathy that some fascist representatives had for the Soviet experience. He also claimed that the Italian regime had influenced the formation of the All-Russian Fascist Party in the early 1930s. Konstantin Rodzaevsky’s party had a role, as noted by Stephen D. Shenfield, in an “adaptation of classical Italian fascism to contemporary Russian conditions. Communism was to be replaced by a ‘national-labor state’ built on corporativist principles, with the population organized in national unions of workers, peasants, and civil servants.” 3 The extreme right always found it difficult to build a solid international strategy, unlike the nationalists, who shared a similar belief that the nation is the center of all and always under constant menace from the outside. 4 Russian political culture has always acknowledged a European component. From nineteenth-century Slavophilism through the varied strands of nationalism today, there has been a continuous interaction with and reference to Europe. Some of the political models proposed at the beginning of the twentieth century were influenced by European experiences and reflections about the nation and national identity; 5 ideas that continued among the Russian diaspora in the interwar period. Contacts between Russia and Europe are more frequent today, 6 and the work of Alexander Dugin and his organizations (the Center for Conservative Studies at Moscow State University and the Eurasianist Union of Youth) link the variegated panorama of the European New Right with Russia. This chapter traces the origins and political path of neo-Eurasianist tendencies in Italy. I begin by focusing on the journal Geopolitica, the first formal examination of geopolitics, that was launched during the interwar years, and on Julius Evola, the Italian esoteric and fascist thinker. Next, I analyze the works of neofascist militants Claudio Mutti and Carlo Terracciano, who introduced the concepts of geopolitics and neo-Eurasianism to Italy. Finally, I turn my attention to the organizations that today are involved in promoting Dugin’s ideas and Russia-friendly positions, particularly the Northern League and its shift from secessionist rhetoric to a more Italian nationalist-oriented one in order to dominate the far-right spectrum.

From Evola to Dugin

99

MASTER OF TRADITION, HERO OF NEOFASCISM: JULIUS EVOLA Ernesto Massi, a young geographer at the Catholic University of Milan, published the first issue of Geopolitica in 1939. Under the aegis of Giuseppe Bottai, the journal’s editorial board tried to develop the Ratzelian conception that Olinto Marinelli, professor of geography in Florence, had introduced to Italian academic circles at the beginning of the twentieth century. Geopolitica sought to give birth to a new, organic, geographical science and to become the “doctrinaire foundation of Fascist foreign policy.” 7 Trying to promulgate an Italian school of geopolitics, the editors, grouped around the Institute of Geography at the University of Trieste, focused on developing the “Italianness” of Trieste, which had been annexed to the Kingdom only in 1918, as a window onto the Balkans and Mitteleuropa. Articles for the review came from the cadres of fascist youth in the universities of Milan. One such student was Amintore Fanfani, an historian and advocate of corporatism who would serve five terms as prime minister for the Christian Democratic Party after World War II. Geopolitica focused on two zones: the Mediterranean Sea and “Eurafrica”—the European powers’ equivalent of Russia’s “near abroad.” The editors believed that a “good neighbor” policy must be observed regarding the Balkans, Turkey, and the Arab world in order to achieve the renaissance of the Roman Empire’s Mare Nostrum against the United Kingdom, which was considered to be the New Carthage. The borders of Eurafrica, the joint space of the two continents, had to be significantly revised in favor of Italian colonialism. 8 The Fascist regime had a great influence on Italian culture during the 1920s and the 1930s. Before 1922, Futurism, Dadaism, and other avant-garde cultural currents had a relevant space in Italy. Italian Futurists supported Mussolini’s Fasci di Combattimento after World War I. In this ambient, a young former military officer turned to painting, influenced by Dada’s style and Tristan Tzara. The young Baron Giulio Cesare Andrea Evola started his intellectual career inside the avant-garde atmosphere of that time: he had corresponded with Tzara, and he regularly met other Italian artists and poets, like Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Giovanni Papini, and Giacomo Balla. In his youth Baron Evola had read Friedrich Nietzsche, who had a great impact on his intellectual outlook, as well as Otto Weininger and Carlo Michelstaedter, from whom he took concepts about sexuality and the relationship between man and nature. These concepts influenced Evola’s way of thinking and are evident in his earliest theoretical works about Dada and art: Arte astratta 9 and La parole obscure du paisage interiéur. 10 After his Dada period, Evola turned to philosophy, and in the mid-1920s he explored idealism, which led him to discover esoteric traditionalism. His search for an Absolute Individual was connected with a keen interest in

100

Giovanni Savino

Oriental doctrines of self-achievement; he did his own translation of Tao-techiang, 11 published in 1923, and a work on Tantra in 1926. 12 His interest went beyond culture, with involvement inside the esoteric circles in Rome, and Evola built up his own circle, the Ur Group (Gruppo di Ur) in 1927. These experiences culminated in Evola’s famous Imperialismo pagano (Pagan Imperialism), written in 1928. The book, translated into German in 1933, sought to bring fascism away from Christianity and Catholicism, and to prod Mussolini’s movement to take up the “torch of Mediterranean tradition,” following the imperial model of ancient Rome. 13 Evola was convinced that fascism must follow a Ghibellin 14 path against the power of the Catholic Church, and that the latter must be subjugated under the Fascist State, which has to declare itself as pagan. 15 From this point on, Evola’s work was characterized by a search for a tradition independent of Catholic influences. Interestingly, in the 1930s fascism largely ignored the suggestions and ideas of the esoteric Evola, but he remained a regular contributor to the newspaper Il Regime Fascista, the house organ of the most extreme faction inside the Fascist National Party, headed by former party secretary Roberto Farinacci. 16 From the pages of Farinacci’s newspaper, Evola gave space to all the traditionalist and conservative intellectuals of the time, from Oswald Spengler to René Guénon, with a focus on the German rightist cultural elite. Evola’s connections with the German Nazi party started at that time. His Rivolta contro il mondo moderno, 17 a seminal work for generations of neofascists, was quickly translated into German, thanks to his ties with the upper echelons of the Nazi regime. 18 Evola also influenced the esoteric circles and societies in Vienna, Budapest, and Bucharest, and it seems he worked for the Nazi Ahnenerbe 19 as an informal propagandist and agent. 20 The promulgation of racial laws in Italy gave more space to Evola, who was involved in the debates about race in Italy in the 1930s. Yet in 1931 Evola wrote enthusiastically on Alfred Rosenberg’s The Myth of the Twentieth Century, in an essay about the racist trends in German culture. 21 He focused on the works of Herman Wirth, author of the book Der Aufgang der Menschheit and one of the first intellectuals who took part in Ahnenerbe, and on Johann Jakob Bachofen’s thought, which was experiencing a renaissance inside the cultural debate in Germany. 22 If Renzo De Felice, in his work about the Jews under Mussolini’s regime, traced a difference between Evola’s conceptions of race and the “German aberrations,” 23 other scholars were inclined to include the thinker in pedestrian repetitions of typical Nazi schemes: as Roberto Maiocchi stated in his research about the Italian racist scientists, Evola repeated and spread the European concepts of racism in Italy. 24 In Il mito del sangue, the traditionalist philosopher wanted to expose the racial theories with “the greatest objectivity,” 25 trying to complete the Rosenberg and Nazi doctrines but excluding Chamberlain theories. Evola tried to incorporate the Aryan race into the broader Roman pagan tradition

From Evola to Dugin

101

against the German particularism exposed by Chamberlain. 26 The book, however, exposed its own Nazi tendencies, praising Mein Kampf quite openly, 27 in continuity with the German debate, as noted by Giovanni Rota. 28 For Evola, the real theoretical problem inside German anti-Semitism was the lack of attention given to the categories of the Spirit. The question was how to legitimately situate the Italians within the German Aryan race. Evola used the search for a spiritual racism, which could work more effectively than the biological form, to resolve the “inadequacies” of Nazi doctrines. 29 These works raised Evola’s profile in Italy, and he was granted a private meeting with Mussolini after the publication of Sintesi di dottrina della razza in September 1941. The spiritual racism described by Evola was meant to eradicate and “fight the Judaic mentality,” which he regarded as a kind of “virus” that had captured the minds and hearts of Aryans, too, making it a more efficient weapon for the racist regimes of the Axis powers. 30 Evola did not deploy the categories of spirituality and tradition to defuse racism; rather, he tried to adapt the ideas of Aryan superiority to different circumstances. As the philologist Furio Jesi stated, Evola must have studied these characteristics as a cultural problem, too, if he was a “repugnant racist.” 31 Jesi criticized attempts to reinterpret Evola into a respectable thinker, finding inaccuracies and misunderstandings in his translation of a Bachofen anthology, 32 and he dismissed the appeal of Evola in neofascist circles after World War II as the need to renew the mythological values of the Italian far right after the fall of Mussolini and his Italian Social Republic (RSI). GLADIO, NEOFASCISTS, AND THE SECRET SERVICES: DESTABILIZE TO STABILIZE Evola’s views did gain limited popularity after World War II. The young activists of the Italian Social Movement (Movimento Sociale Italiano— MSI), the partisans, and the Italian Communist Party (PCI) initially tried to invoke the traditional nationalist rhetoric about the Risorgimento and Garibaldi. But the failure of those myths to resonate created a space for an esoteric and traditionalist interpretation of fascism. Evola himself came back to Italy in 1948, following a long convalescence in Vienna after being paralyzed by an Allied bombardment in 1945. From 1951 until his death in 1974 he lived in Rome, where he was involved in writing and esoterism. In 1950 he was tried in connection with the Fasci d’Azione Rivoluzionaria (FAR), a neofascist organization that was active from 1945 to 1947 and again in 1950 to 1951. Evola was an inspiration for the young neofascists, many of whom came from the ranks of the Italian Social Republic, and were destined to play significant roles in the Italian far right for the next fifty years, like Pino

102

Giovanni Savino

Rauti, Clemente Graziani, Giano Accame, Giulio Maceratini, and others. Rauti remembered the charisma of the “master” and how chatter about his acquaintances in the German SS increased Evola’s moral authority among the neofascist youth. 33 Evola was accused of being Fasci d’Azione Rivoluzionaria’s theoretical chief, and his links with Rauti and Graziani seemed to prove it, but he was acquitted in 1951, along with Rauti. The constant references to an ancestral Roman and pagan tradition in Evola’s work had echoes in the formation of the I Figli del Sole (Children of the Sun), a circle that was at the forefront of the Ordine Nuovo (New Order—ON) movement discussed below. Its name was a clear reference to Evola’s idea of the Sun as a symbol of virility, against the Moon, which was a metaphor for an “effeminate” modern world. 34 Evola expressed his admiration for Ordine Nuovo as an organization that never denied the theoretical basis of fascism. Evola published Gli uomini e le rovine in 1953, which Clemente Graziani described as the “gospel of the national-revolutionary youth.” 35 The aim of the radical neofascist movement, which emerged in 1954 from a split inside the spiritualist and intransigent currents of the MSI, led by Rauti and Graziani, respectively, was to attack modern society and the moderatism of MSI leaders. Evola’s books were at the center of the formation of Ordine Nuovo militants, which saw “Orientamenti,” Evola’s essay published in the journal Imperium in 1950, 36 as a guide for action in postwar Italy. Ordine Nuovo openly admired Nazism and adopted the motto of the SS squad: “Our honor is named loyalty,” as the Evolian call to renounce all sociopolitical developments since the French Revolution. Ordine Nuovo also adopted the song “La Vandeana” (La Vendéenne), inspired by the revolt in the French Vendée, as its own. The current world was the realm of the Kali Yuga, 37 where the crisis of values crushed the traditional order. A warrior ethos imbued the Ordine Nuovo discourse and formed the basis for recruiting members, and Evola’s Gli uomini e le rovine 38 and Cavalcare la tigre 39 provided answers to questions about politics and life. This militant mentality was meant to ensure that activists were ready to be involved in violence and other dangerous activities. Ordine Nuovo’s emergence coincided with new concerns about communist expansion, partially whipped up by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. CIA covert operations to contrast the PCI and the Popular Front helped secure a victory for the Christian Democratic Party (DC) in the April 18, 1948, parliamentary elections. On March 30, 1949, the Armed Forces Information Service (Servizio Informazioni Forze Armate—SIFAR) was created under CIA supervision. 40 Italy joined NATO on November 28, 1951, as a shield against advancing Soviet communism. 41 The contradictions between political integration and violent activism propelled the MSI to develop a network of “self-defense” militias that bombed PCI offices and more. 42 The Gladio network played up these tensions as a recruitment strategy and used Ordine Nuovo and the splinter

From Evola to Dugin

103

group, National Vangard (Avanguardia Nazionale), headed by Stefano Delle Chiaie, to carry out its plans. In 1965, the Alberto Pollio Institute of Military Studies organized a symposium on combatting the so-called Red Danger. Intellectuals, politicians, journalists, army officers, and neofascists attended the event, held at the hotel Parco dei Principi in Rome. The conference helped develop the Strategy of Tension (Strategia della Tensione) used in the late 1960s. Participants included blatant fascists like Giorgio Pisanò, as well as scholars like Pio Filippani Ronconi (who served in the Waffen SS), ex-communists like the journalist Renato Mieli, and Social Democratic deputy Ivan Matteo Lombardo. In the foreword to the symposium’s proceedings, Edgardo Beltrametti, a journalist involved in all the “black intrigues” (trame nere) 43 of the time, wrote about the need to act unwaveringly against the “planetary offensive” of communism, in a confrontation he regarded as an undeclared World War III. 44 Among the presenters, Pino Rauti spoke about the “strategy of communist penetration in Italy” and called on the government to take more effective measures to combat the Reds than the available democratic and constitutional options. 45 Rauti, an ex-soldier of the RSI and journalist of the newspaper Il Tempo, advocated a strategy based on controlling public opinion, the trade unions, and all the social movements in the country. Renato Mieli, who served in the Allied Psychological War Bureau (and likely the U.S. Office of Strategic Services) during 1944–1945 and was in Palmiro Togliatti’s inner circle at the PCI, spoke about the opportunities offered by the Sino-Soviet split. 46 Mieli’s position was used to promote the Chinese posters operation, 47 a false-flag move of Reserved Affairs Office of the Interior Ministry with the involvement of Stefano Delle Chiaie’s Avanguardia Nazionale. 48 Parco dei Principi marked a new stage in Operation Gladio, after the failed coup d’état directed by Giovanni De Lorenzo, the head of the Italian military police (Carabinieri) and former head of SIFAR. The coup was inspired by President Antonio Segni against the first center-left cabinet, comprised of the Christian Democratic Party and the Italian Socialist Party (PSI). 49 Just a few months later, in April 1967, a military junta successfully seized power in Greece under Colonel Georgios Papadopoulos, a CIA collaborator and member of Operation Gladio. The Italian far-right groups openly and enthusiastically supported the seditious attempts of Gladio and the secret services. Davide Conti pointed out that Parco dei Principi inspired the MSI base, and the neofascist organizations unanimously supported the coup attempt. 50 Cries of “Basta con I bordelli, vogliamo I colonnelli!” (Stop with the brothels, we want the colonels!) and “Ankara, Atene, adesso Roma viene!” (Ankara, Athens, soon Rome!) rallied people against the growing forces of the left. The year 1968 was the start of a period of more than ten years when workers and students regularly protested government social policies. In the

104

Giovanni Savino

spring of 1968, fifty representatives of leading neofascist organizations, including Ordine Nuovo, Avanguardia Nazionale, Europa Civiltà, and FUANLa Caravella, went to Greece at the invitation of the National League of Greek Students in Italy (ESESI), which was directly linked to the Greek regime. Rauti was a frequent guest of the Greek colonels, and the delegation met with officers of the junta. 51 After this trip, Italian neofascist groups launched a wide-scale operation to infiltrate far-left, anarchist, and MarxistLeninist groups in Italy, seeking to disrupt the student movement, and began to use front organizations for false-flag operations. One of the operatives, Mario Merlino, carried out constant provocations and infiltration attempts in the months before the Piazza Fontana bombings on December 12, 1969. 52 Merlino was acquitted of the bombing, but his relations with Avanguardia Nazionale founder Delle Chiaie and other neofascist groups are still strong today. Serafino Di Luia, one of Delle Chiaie’s closest collaborators, established the Organizzazione Lotta di Popolo (OLP) on May 1, 1969, a “Nazi-Maoist” organization that used elements of anti-imperialist and communist rhetoric with openly anti-Semitic and racial ideas. The formation took some ideas from Thiriart’s Young Europe, as well as the writings of Claudio Mutti. CLAUDIO MUTTI, THE PROPHET Claudio Mutti became politically active in the early 1960s, at the age of fourteen. He joined the MSI youth organization, Giovane Italia, but was expelled for extremism. 53 Next, he became one of the first activists in the Italian branch of Young Europe, 54 the organization led by the Belgian JeanFrançois Thiriart, who was involved in the association Amis du Grand Reich Allemand during World War II. Mutti first met Thiriart in Parma, his native city, in 1964 and edited La Nazione Europea, the monthly newspaper of the Italian section, from 1966 to 1970. 55 Young Europe attracted the younger generation of Italian neofascism, which was more Europeanist than nationalist, according to Franco Cardini, a leading Italian medievalist who was active inside Young Europe at the time. 56 In those years Thiriart shifted “to the left,” trying to find support in Ceausescu’s Romania and Maoist China, even meeting with Zhou Enlai in Bucharest in 1966. 57 After the Young Europe crisis, Mutti joined Organizzazione Lotta di Popolo in 1969, and at the beginning of the 1970s founded the Italy-Libya Friendship Society with Claudio Orsi, 58 the nephew of the fascist governor of Libya, Italo Balbo. 59 Franco Giorgio Freda, convicted and later acquitted for lack of evidence in the Piazza Fontana bombing, then found guilty of other attacks in the 1970s, was in touch with Mutti: the latter directed the publishing activities of Edizioni di Ar, Freda’s publishing house, when Freda was in

From Evola to Dugin

105

jail. 60 Mutti was arrested for the first time in 1974, accused of involvement in the Ordine Nero affair. 61 After five months of prison, he was exonerated of those charges but accused of aiding Freda, because policemen found a note from Freda for SID agent Guido Giannettini in one of his shoes. 62 Mutti published his first works, La Rivoluzione Culturale Libica (The Libyan Cultural Revolution) and Gheddafi Templare di Allah (Gaddafi, Templar of Allah) in the early 1970s. 63 The first book described Gaddafi’s rise to power and subsequent reforms; the second was a collection of Gaddafi’s speeches, with him presented as the esoteric knight of tradition, in a Guénonian light. Mutti is an expert on traditionalism, and his polemics with “Feirefiz” are famous in esoteric circles. 64 Mutti converted to Islam in 1985, taking the name Omar Amin in honor of Col. Johann Amin von Leers, the SS officer who served as political advisor during the regime of Egyptian leader Gamel Nasser. 65 Mutti studied Hungarian language and philology, successfully defending a thesis at the University of Bologna on the influence of Romanian on the Hungarian language, where he worked with Guglielmo Capacchi, but his university career was cut short due to his political positions. 66 Mutti launched his publishing house, Edizioni All’insegna del Veltro, in 1978. The publisher focused exclusively on far-right topics until the early 1990s, when it began to shift leftward. Critical essays on Codreanu, analytical studies of Drieu La Rochelle’s poetics, works dedicated to Evola, 67 and writings by Hitler are in the All’insegna del Veltro catalogue, together with the Italian translation of Gennadii Zyuganov’s book Derzhava 68 and a series focusing on so-called anti-imperialist countries like North Korea, China, Iran, and Kazakhstan. 69 Other books had sponsors, such as the embassy of Kazakhstan in Italy, which funded the Italian translation of Dugin’s The Eurasianist Mission of Nursultan Nazarbayev. Another frequent author is Giulietto Chiesa, a former Moscow correspondent for the Communist newspaper L’Unità and a past fellow of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. 70 Chiesa is known to spread Eurasianist ideas among the Italian left, without mentioning his ties to Dugin and Prokhanov. The latter often publishes Chiesa’s interviews and articles in his newspaper, Zavtra, 71 and Chiesa became a member of Prokhanov’s Izborsky Club in 2014. Mutti spent more than thirty years teaching Ancient Greek and Latin at the Classical Lyceum of his hometown, Parma. But he came under fire in 1999–2000, when he was tainted by anti-Semitic and homophobic views expressed by his son, Solimano, during a meeting at the school. 72 The comments triggered protests, antifascist meetings, critical articles, 73 pro-Mutti questions raised by the Northern League in parliament, and a book defending him and the “freedom of the school,” with a preface written by Franco

106

Giovanni Savino

Cardini, an important Italian medievalist who was a member of Young Europe in the 1960s. 74 Mutti’s intellectual and political partnership with Dugin started during the last days of the Soviet Union. The “professor-mujaheddin,” as Dugin called Mutti, first published pamphlets and books devoted to Russia in the mid1980s. Initially, the works were dedicated to the topics of the Third Rome 75 and the philosophy of Konstantin Leontiev (1831–1891). 76 All’insegna del Veltro published the first Italian translation of Leontiev’s Byzantinism and Slavdom, and Mutti praised the nineteenth-century philosopher as “a precursor of Eurasianism.” 77 It also published The Rebirth of the Nationalism, written by Aldo Ferrari, an Italian scholar of Russian and Armenian studies. The book focused on the growth of the nationalist Pamyat organization in the late 1980s and stressed how Pamyat regarded Jews as simultaneously the enemy behind the state bureaucracy, promoters of antinational communism, and agents of cosmopolitanism and capitalism. 78 The book, whose cover featured Ilya Glazunov’s painting Eternal Russia, provided an inside look at Pamyat, reproducing materials not seen before in Italy, including an interview with one of the movement’s leaders by Fiammetta Cucurnia of La Repubblica. 79 Ferrari and Mutti had differing interpretations of Pamyat, seeing it either as the continuation of a Black Hundred organization or the Russian version of Codreanu’s fascism, as both pointed out in the foreword and conclusion, respectively. 80 With the publication of Continente Russia in 1991, a collection of Dugin’s essays translated into Italian, a portion of the Italian far right began to turn eastward. Many hopes were pinned on a red-brown revolution, or a triumph of tradition in Moscow, and Dugin was seen as the Messiah for the tiny group around Mutti and Carlo Terracciano, one of the former leaders of the Fronte della Gioventù (Youth Front), the youth organization of MSI. The journal Orion, established in 1984 by a circle around former MSI activist Maurizio Murelli, took note of this changing geopolitical orientation. 81 Murelli saw the ferment on the Russian right as a way to open a new European front against the United States and for tradition: “We think that inside the evolution of the Communist thought, that is not only Marxism but among different and ancient traditions, and inside the Fascist synthesis of Traditional and National values, there are the premises to rebuild a political, economic and social hypothesis.” 82 In an article for Aurora, a fringe journal founded in the late 1980s after a split on the “left” portion of the MSI, Murelli answered seven questions about Orion, the Political Antagonist Movement (Movimento Politico Antagonista—an attempt to unite the Socialist National platforms and groups on the far right), and Mutti and Terracciano. The first question asked about the roles of Mutti and Terracciano, and Murelli gave an interesting answer: he pointed out how Mutti could not be placed on the traditional left-right spec-

From Evola to Dugin

107

trum and was being unfairly persecuted by the judge and antifascists. 83 At that time, Terracciano and Mutti were members of Orion’s editorial board, and their views were reflected in the journal’s content. An issue of Origini, the monographic series of Orion, was dedicated to Cuba, with speeches by Fidel Castro and the Cuban ambassador to the United Nations, articles translated from the Granma Internacional news agency, and Cuban revolutionary songs. Terracciano saw Cuba as a buffer against the new world order and thought it might possibly deliver a blow to the United States. 84 Italian neofascism had supported the Third World and national-liberation revolutions in the past, including Peronism and Nicaragua’s Eden Pastora, 85 but Terracciano sought to unite an antimondialist front based on the Pamyat model. He appreciated the Russian organization’s eclectic mixing of Soviet, monarchist, fascist, and countercultural elements, as well as the newspaper Den’. It was a not casual connection, because the links between Orion and Thiriart (who always corresponded with Mutti) on one side, and Dugin and Prokhanov, on the other, were strengthened during these years. In August 1992, Thiriart, Terracciano, and Marco Battarra (an editor at Orion) went to Moscow as representatives of the European Liberation Front and had meetings with Prokhanov, Dugin, Sergei Baburin, Gennadii Zyuganov, and Geydar Dzhemal. 86 Afterward, the three from Orion took part to the First Congress of Peoples Oppressed by the New World Order in March 1993 in Moscow. Officially, Battarra represented the journal, Terracciano the Antagonist Movement, and Mutti the Islamic circle “Murabitum” and the Islamic Council for the Defense of Europe. Dugin also organized debates with Dzhemal, Eduard Volodin, and Colonel Morozov. 87 The most influential Italian newspaper, Corriere della Sera, published a small article about the “only official representatives of the Unified Russian Opposition in Italy,” quoting Zyuganov, who discussed Orion’s ties with the Russian National Salvation Front, a red-brown coalition uniting communists and nationalists. 88 The attempt to win leftists to the common cause against U.S. imperialism had little success in the 1990s. Terracciano at that time tried to build up an Italian National Salvation Front that would advance a “no left, no right” agenda against the MSI, which he denounced as too pro-Atlantist (i.e., NATO and Washington). 89 But the project did not succeed, and a new political force, Alleanza Nazionale (AN), appeared in 1995 following the dissolution of MSI. Alleanza Nazionale had an important presence in Italian politics, participating in Berlusconi’s first cabinet in 1994, and peaking in the 1996 general elections with 15.7 percent of the vote. Also in 1995, Rauti’s Movimento Sociale-Fiamma Tricolore (MS-FT) emerged; it was too rooted in the classic far-right tradition for Mutti and Terracciano’s approval. Two years later, a faction headed by Adriano Tilgher, Delle Chiaie’s right-hand man 90 in Avanguardia Nazionale, split off and formed the Fronte Nazionale, a new organization with an old name and inspired by Jean-Marie Le Pen’s

108

Giovanni Savino

experience. Terracciano took part in the First Programmatic Conference of the movement, 91 and started a strong propaganda campaign inside the Italian Fronte Nazionale, to propel the new party into the center of the antimondialist front. A small journal, Rosso è Nero (Red is Black), was the voice of this neo-Eurasianist position inside the movement, and Terracciano had a leadership role in Fronte Nazionale. In 1999, upset over the party’s attempts to join Berlusconi’s coalition, the Rosso è Nero editors left the Fronte Nazionale to set up a national-communist force. Mutti and Terracciano saw the wave of social protest that began in 1999 with the start of the antiglobalization movement as a new opportunity. The period between 2001 and 2004 was the peak of the antiglobalization movement in Italy, with the great demonstrations in Naples in March 2001 and the “No G-8” protests alongside the Group of Eight meeting in Genoa on July 19–22, 2001, which ended in brutal repression. 92 Terracciano, in his book Rivolta contro il mondialismo moderno, analyzed the potential of the protests, appealingly describing such encounters as rebellions against globalization, dismissing the categories of right and left. 93 Terracciano’s attack against the Italian right, at that time the incumbent government, was strong, accusing Prime Minister Berlusconi of being Atlantist, pro-U.S., and on the same side as Zionists, betraying the revolutionary potential of original fascism. 94 Mutti was more critical of the antiglobalization movement, which he thought was affected by cosmopolitanism, utopian internationalism, and other “mondialist” influences. 95 Together with Tiberio Graziani, 96 Mutti and Terracciano helped promote an anti-U.S. campaign during the Iraq War, with a small segment of far-left organizations grouped around Campo Antimperialista, a broad anti-American initiative, in 2003. The polemics around the presence of Mutti and other neofascists flared up and undercut the appeal. The neofascists’ search for their own political space, with a think tank that could dominate Italian academics, led to the foundation of the journal Eurasia in the autumn of 2004. The journal, headed by Mutti and Graziani, started with an issue devoted to Turkey. The opening article was a translation of Dugin’s “The Eurasianist Idea” in Italian, a clear declaration of intention by the editors. 97 Dugin explains his plans and views for the world, to be reconstructed in different geopolitical areas, with the eternal opposition between the Eurasian Heartland and the Atlantic bloc. The Russian thinker emphasizes the necessity of “democratic” proceedings and respect for the different cultures and religions inside the Eurasian space and proposes the formation of several geopolitical axes with Moscow (Moscow-Ankara, Moscow-Tehran, Moscow-Delhi) and the adoption of Eurasianism as a Weltanschauung, a kind of postmodernist, positive, traditionalist philosophy. 98 Dugin is a member of the Scientific Committee of Eurasia, together with other Russian nationalists and rightists, like Sergei Baburin, and international academicians, such as Philip Kelly of Emporia State University in Kansas. The

From Evola to Dugin

109

committee also includes influential representatives of Italian academics, diplomacy, military, and business, like Franco Cardini (professor of medieval history at the University of Florence and a former Young Europe militant), Sergio Romano (former ambassador to NATO and the USSR), General Fabio Mini (former chief of the UN’s Kosovo Force and former head of the General Staff at NATO’s Allied Forces in Southern Europe), and Antonello Folco Biagini (pro-rector of La Sapienza Rome University). Anyone can submit an article to the journal, and it sometimes publishes articles by young students and scholars in political science or economics, who welcome the opportunity to have an article published by a journal with an editorial board comprised of international experts, but with no understanding of the journal’s underlying doctrines. The Eurasia project is not only an academic endeavor, but has always sought to consolidate a movement based on the so-called fourth political theory developed by Dugin and supported by the European New Right. The internal bulletin of the Società Nazionale (one of the different coordination committees set up by Mutti’s circle), La Nazione Eurasia (Nation Eurasia), hosted a discussion in its first issue about the urgency of building a Eurasianist option inside the Italian political landscape. In his editorial, Daniele Scalea pointed out that Eurasianism does not mean substituting U.S. hegemony with an EU one, but: Our Eurasia has not its raison d’être in the industrial force, wealth or power’s thirst, but in the common History, Culture and Tradition. It is not a kind of Orwellian “superstate,” but a Nation, as it is mentioned in the title of this bulletin. It will not have as its idol the Yankee “Money god” but sacred goal: the liberation of oppressed peoples by American Neo-colonial imperialism. And it will not take the amoral flag of Capitalism, but, as hoped—or predicted?—by Drieu La Rochelle, will take the red banner of Social justice. 99

Stefano Vernole, another Mutti collaborator, in the same issue underlines the modernity of Jean-François Thiriart’s thoughts and argues that founding a European party would enable Europe to get out from U.S. hegemony and to ally with a traditionalist Russia. “For geopolitical and cultural reasons,” he wrote, “Russia will have to, sooner or later, antagonize the US, or it will perish, so until now it is a possible ally, even essential, if we consider its economic and military resources.” 100 Attempts to formalize such a movement were made with the constitution of the Project Eurasia coordination committee, in 2004, and the Eurasia-Mediterranean Research Center (Centro Studi Eurasia-Mediterraneo—CeSEM), in 2012, the latter under the direction of Lorenzo Salimbeni and the active participation of Vernole. CeSEM states that it has a “strong partnership” with Eurasia, and regularly publishes book with Anteo Edizioni, a publishing house linked with the Socialismo patriottico (the former Stato & Potenza, see below) entourage.

110

Giovanni Savino

Tiberio Graziani headed Eurasia for seven years but, after a clash about the journal’s orientation, left it in 2011 and opened Geopolitica, another journal who poses itself more “academic” and “neutral,” with the presence of Natalia Narochnitskaya at the Scientific Committee. 101 After Graziani’s departure, Mutti assumed responsibility for the journal’s direction, causing other members—Sergio Romano, Armen Oganesyan, Alfredo Canavero, Come Carpentier de Gourdon, Carlos Pereyra Mele, and Miguel Barrios—to resign from Eurasia’s editorial board. Dugin remains close to both Eurasia and Geopolitica, and the new journal publishes translations and interviews of the Russian thinker. STATO & POTENZA AND MILLENNIUM: ITALIAN NEO-EURASIANIST LATEST DEVELOPMENTS Since 2011, two new Dugin-inspired Eurasianist organizations have been founded in Italy: Stato & Potenza (State & Power) and Millennium, a branch of the European Communitarian Party. Stato & Potenza uses rhetoric similar to the original incarnation of Italian fascism, the so-called Diciannovismo. 102 Its hosts militants from the far right, such as as Lorenzo Salimbeni, a young historian from Trieste, currently active in the Lega Nazionale (a nationalist organization in multiethnic Trieste) and previously active in Azione Giovani, the youth wing of Alleanza Nazionale. Salimbeni is openly anticommunist and calls for a revision of the 1947 peace treaty, claiming Italy’s right to regain Istria and Dalmatia. MSI and the far right have frequently raised this irredentist issue against Italian leftists, communists, and ethnic Slovenes, who are seen as “national traitors” and Tito’s spies. Fascist demonstrations are organized in Italian cities every February 10, observed as Remembrance Day in honor of the Foibe martyrs, the alleged victims of a Yugoslavian genocide against Italians. Stato & Potenza uses the Stalin-Tito clash to defend a clearly nationalist stance about the Istria issue, giving a red tint to a typically fascist issue. Salimbeni also writes for Mutti’s Eurasia and is the director of the Eurasia-Mediterranean Research Center. Some of Stato & Potenza members came from Rifondazione Comunista and other far-left organizations. Some topics are debated in “red” language, glorifying a corporatist concept of the state as the medium of class struggle, and with a geopolitical interpretation of the old Italian nationalist and later fascist slogan about the proletarian nation, first used by the national poet Giovanni Pascoli in 1912 to support the colonial war in Libya. Despite this avowed leftist orientation, Stato & Potenza defends traditional values on issues like the family, and opposes abortion, LGBT rights, and immigration. In an interview with the rightist newspaper Libero Quotidiano in January

From Evola to Dugin

111

2014, Stato & Potenza coordinator Stefano Bonilauri called for tighter control over illegal immigrants, whom he accused of taking jobs from Italians, and described himself as a Socialist patriot. 103 Both Stato & Potenza and Italian neofascists have participated in the European Front for Syria, with Casa Pound, a neofascist movement, known for the seizure of vacant buildings in Rome. This alliance has hit some trouble, because the “Fascists of the Third Millennium,” as Casa Pound defines itself, support the Right Sector nationalist party in Ukraine. Alessandro Lattanzio, editor of Eurasia and the Stato & Potenza website, attacked the group vehemently. 104 Stato & Potenza regularly appears in the news thanks to the Italian edition of the Moscow-funded Voice of Russia. 105 Stefano Bonilauri, the leader of S&P, claims to have received threats from Ukrainian Rightists and Islamic activists in Italy. While attacks from Ukraine are quite possible, the only attacks against the European Front for Syria were taken by Italian antifascists, who were annoyed by the infiltration of Dugininspired positions in the anti-imperialist struggle. Bonilauri is involved, along with Marco Costa and other Stato & Potenza activists, in the promotion of Gladio & Martello, a book series published by Mutti’s Edizioni All’insegna del Veltro and dedicated to topics like the Nazi left and communitarianism. 106 In summer 2014 the group adopted a new name, Socialismo patriottico (Patriotic socialism), and augmented the use of fascist graphics for its pamphlets and posters. If State & Potenza tries to cultivate a leftist image, Millennium appeals to a more classic combination of Evolian and fascist imaginary, with some ultra-Catholic elements. The group advocates a European revolution against modernity, with clear references to Joseph De Maistre and traditionalist Catholicism. Two key figures of the group are Orazio Maria Gnerre and Andrea Virga. Gnerre, Millenium’s president, comes from the town of Benevento, in Southern Italy, and is known for his Catholic activism, familiarity with local traditionalist politics, and flirtation with the Neo-Bourbonic movement and the Northern League Catholic Traditionalists. Perhaps the most interesting figure of the movement is Virga, a doctoral student at the Institute for Advanced Studies (IMT) in Lucca. Virga’s political views are based on a mixture of fascism, Evolian traditionalism, and religious values. His research has ranged from the Conservative Revolution during the National Socialist regime in Germany to Cuban falangism. 107 This interest for all faces of different forms of reactionary and fascist movements around the world comes from reading Evola’s Revolt against the Modern World and Spengler’s The Decline of the West. 108 Virga is a smart young scholar, who does not hide his desire for an ethical state built on the example of the regimes of the 1920s and 1930s, and who criticizes every progressive move inside the Catholic Church. 109 He wrote an introduction to Pio Filippani Ronconi, an outstanding Orientalist scholar, who served in the SS as Obersturmführer and was in-

112

Giovanni Savino

volved in all the plots around the strategy of tension. 110 Millennium organized a conference in Turin in October 2012 that was attended by Dugin, the Italian Sufi master Shaykh Abd Al-Wahid Pallavicini, and other rightist intellectuals. Dugin’s influence is evident in Millenium’s bulletin, Nomos, which currently publishes articles and interviews with different representatives of the fourth political theory, like Natella Speranskaya 111 and Dugin himself. 112 The journal also analyzes the development of Dugin’s political thought in different countries. 113 A conference organized by Millennium in January 2014 was met with fierce protest by students from Milan State University and antifascist groups that denounced Mutti’s presence. 114 Millennium’s views found a receptive audience in June 2014, when Gnerre and Luca Pintaudi went to Donetsk, Ukraine, and were presented by the secessionist leader Pavel Gubarev as “Italian Antifascist volunteers.” 115 The visit sparked criticism, with articles in the Italian press describing the two militants as redbrown activists. 116 The activities of the duo in the Donbass were merely propagandistic, but the presence of the Polish organization Falanga, which has been linked to Millennium and Dugin, indicates that the Donetsk People’s Republic was becoming a playground for fascist-inspired nationalism from all over Europe. THE NORTHERN LEAGUE: FROM SECESSION TO NATION EUROPE Dugin is also linked to the most “Old Italian” political party, the Northern League (Lega Nord), which has been in crisis in recent years. Corruption scandals around the party’s long-time leader, Umberto Bossi, and ties with the Calabria Mafia gravely damaged the image of the party. Vascillating between secessionism for Northern Italy and participation to Berlusconi’s cabinets, the Northern League remains a regional party, but it scored a significant victory in the 2014 European elections, sending Mario Borghezio to the European Parliament to represent Central Italy. Borghezio, an Ordine Nuovo militant in the 1970s, 117 has remained close to Neofascist circles. 118 He edited Orion Finanza, a financial insert of the far-rightist journal Orion, and was close to Mutti personally. 119 Borghezio’s activities within the Northern League have always been provocative, such as slapping a Moroccan child in 1991 120 and setting fire to a migrant camp in 2000. 121 While far rightists have traditionally been anti-immigrant, in the early 2000s Borghezio started collaboration in an anti-Muslim fashion with Forza Nuova. His election was the product of a tactical-political pact between the Northern League and Casa Pound. 122

From Evola to Dugin

113

The efforts of the Northern League to take over the Italian right are connected with the Circle Taliban (Circolo Il Talebano, not related to the Afghan Taliban) think tank, headed by Vincenzo Sofo, a former coordinator of the Milan branch of the Italian Youth, a wing of La Destra (The Right). Sofo left the party in 2007 and joined the league in 2009. 123 He was not alone in following this path; Fabrizio Fratus—a leading anti-evolutionist activist, past personal secretary of Forza Italia MP Daniela Santanché, and leading figure in Fiamma Tricolore—also joined the Northern League. 124 Fratus is the ideologue of the league’s Talibans and has been evidently inspired by traditionalism, German Conservative Revolution, and Thiriart’s theories. He authored the white paper presented by the Talibans at the 2013 Northern League congress, which analyzes the Italian and European context and raises the question of a “reconciliation” between the conservative right and the anticapitalist left, charting a new course for the league. 125 The document outlines a new political and ideological project around a new “Europe of the fatherlands,” against bureaucratic Brussels. The historical arguments adopted by Fratus and his cothinkers are typical of the traditional neofascist interpretation of the past: a sharp rejection of Enlightenment ideas, seen as the root of the degradation of modern society, and a rehabilitation of the tripartite medieval society, a scheme used by Evola and other traditionalists in representing the European civilization before the French Revolution. 126 They also regard Thiriart as the prophet of a new European alliance of nations, in which a pro-Russia stance is the linchpin. The bid for a common European space, a kind of alliance among various regions united by tradition and using local currencies, is the plan of the league’s Talibans, who are trying to resurrect the old project for an independent Padania (Northern Italy) with the ambitions to build up a national force in Italy. 127 The contradiction between the myth of Italian-ness and the league’s traditional secessionism is bridged by a reference to Evola’s antiprovincialism. 128 One of the most important personalities inside the extreme right, Roberto Jonghi Lavarini, also oriented his political group, Progetto Nazionale, toward the league and Dugin, and he met the Russian thinker in Milan in July 2014. 129 An important turning point in the league’s shift to a pro-Russian extreme right was a mass anti-immigration demonstration in Milan on October 18, 2014, involving the Northern League, Casa Pound, and other neofascist organizations. During the demonstration, the crowd displayed posters hailing Putin and flags of the Donetsk People’s Republic. The protest capped a week of pro-Russia activities that began with Matteo Salvini, leader of the Northern League, and his entourage traveling to Moscow and the Crimea, where they met Aleksei Pushkov, chair of Foreign Affairs Committee of the Russian Duma, and leaders of the Crimean government. During a break at the Asia-Europe summit in Milan on October 17, Salvini and Putin talked for

114

Giovanni Savino

twenty minutes. The Northern League took a position in the Italian and Russian press against EU sanctions on Russia and presented itself as the defender of Italian business interests. 130 Speaking to Itar-TASS afterward, Salvini reaffirmed his goal of revoking EU sanctions against Russia. 131 This pro-Russian stance also gave birth in 2013 to the Lombardia-Russia Society, which seeks to promote a neo-Eurasianist attitude inside the economic and political circles of Northern Italy. This initiative came from Max Ferrari, a columnist at the Northern League’s newspaper, La Padania, and a commentator for Voice of Russia. 132 It was enthusiastically supported by the Northern League and the local institutions it controls: the Lombardia Regional Council, the Varese province, and various business circles. The honorary president of the Lombardia-Russia Society is Aleksei Komov, the Russian representative of the World Congress of Families and a colleague of Dugin’s. 133 The society has provided regular articles and interviews with Dugin, 134 Komov, 135 and the president of the Russian-Italian Youth, Irina Osipova, a student at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration who now is involved in different initiatives in defense of traditional values and the so-called Russian way of life. 136 Osipova is very active in promoting contacts between Italian and Russian far rightists. She, for instance, arranged the September 2014 trip to Moscow of some members of the Lombardia-Russia Society and representatives of other neofascist movements, including Mauro Antonini, 137 a leader of Casa Pound, 138 which officially supports the Ukrainian Right Sector 139 and the Tryzub. 140 The young Russian representative turned her association in a more political organization and now tries to give space to rightist forces from Italy in different settings, from universities to the press. 141 Another regular contributor is Alfonso Piscitelli, an Evolian journalist who is often interviewed by Voice of Russia. As we can see from this analysis, Mutti built the network with Russia through Dugin, has good relations with the Northern League, and his former pupil, Mario Borghezio, currently sits in the European Parliament. This Eurasianist neofascism has grown in recent years and draws support from some politicians and the secret intelligence services, but also from the business sector. For instance, a two-week festival held June 3 through 15, 2014, called Continente Russia (after the first volume of Dugin’s essays in Italian), was funded by important firms and sponsored by Banca Intesa—not only the largest bank in Italy but one with huge interests in Russia. On July 4, 2014, Dugin was the principal guest at a conference on the “Eurasianist vision of Russia” hosted by the Lombardia-Russia Society in Milan, but the society is also able to organize symposiums with a wide range of partners, from the European Front for Syria to the Russian state agency for cultural cooperation abroad, Rossotrudnichestvo. 142

From Evola to Dugin

115

THE STRATEGIC TURN OF FORZA NUOVA AND THE EUROPEAN SOCIAL MOVEMENTS TO RUSSIA The ultra-Catholic and neofascist party Forza Nuova has embraced Russia too. In the first months of 2014, Forza Nuova, linked with Nick Griffin’s British National Party, made a considerable shift in its strategic alliances in Eastern Europe. Roberto Fiore, the head of the organization, had maintained close ties with the Ukrainian far-right party Svoboda since the mid-2000s. In October 2013, a meeting between representatives of Forza Nuova and Svoboda’s deputy chairman, Andriy Мokhnyk, and the head of the party’s international department, Taras Osaulenko, took place in Kyiv, confirming the collaboration between the two far-right parties. 143 Fiore hailed the Ukrainian Revolution of early 2014 as an insurrection against a corrupt government, but, in a letter addressed to Svoboda leader Oleh Tyahnybok, he expressed his concerns about the risk involved in putting Ukraine into the hands of the “anti-Christian and Masonic lobbies” of the EU, NATO, and United States. The letter is no longer available on Forza Nuova’s website, but it can be found on other neofascist resources. 144 With the beginning of the hostilities in Donbass, Fiore made a considerable shift to the pro-Russian camp, aided by his contacts with Komov, united by their shared anti-abortion and anti-homosexuality battles. 145 This turn is not only a theoretical or strategic one, but had practical effects: a Forza Nuova representative in the Tuscan town of Lucca, Andrea Palmeri, escaped from surveillance in summer 2014. 146 Famous for aggression against leftist activists in Lucca, Palmeri, who is married to a Russian woman, had gone to Lugansk, Ukraine, in order to fight against “Kyiv Fascists.” The story of Palmeri’s escape was reported not only by different Italian newspapers, but also relayed in an interview with Irina Osipova by Palmeri himself, where he explained the differences between Mussolini’s Fascism and German Nazism. 147 The activities of Forza Nuova extend beyond participating in the Ukrainian civil war. Fiore participated in the August 31, 2014, international conference “Russia, Ukraine, New Russia: Global Problems and Challenges” in Yalta, with Luc Michel and other European far-right representatives. 148 A delegation of Forza Nuova and the Pro-Vita society also took part in the International forum of Families in Moscow on September 10 to 11, 2014. 149 Forza Nuova is not alone in this attempt to gain sympathies in Russia. On March 27, 2014, in preparation of Barack Obama’s trip to Italy, Rome was full of posters in the colors of the Russian flag, with the words “Roma sta con Putin. Obama ospite indesiderato” (Rome stands with Putin. Obama unwanted guest). Posters were signed by neofascist groups, under the aegis of the European Social Movement (Movimento Sociale Europeo—MSE). These groups have a very limited presence, based predominately in Rome—some of them in only a few suburbs of the capital, like the Comunità Militante,

116

Giovanni Savino

based in Formello and Ostia. The European Social Movement is one of the numerous breakaway factions of Fiamma Tricolore, the party organized by Pino Rauti after the Fini turn and the creation of Alleanza Nazionale. It origined in 2000 with a pro-Berlusconi position, supporting an alliance with the forces of Polo della Libertà for the regional elections of that year. The founding congress saw the participation of Jean-Marie Le Pen and European MPs of Vlaams Blok. The movement was quite successful initially, with support from Roberto Bigliardo, Fiamma’s MEP, but it was progressively absorbed by Alleanza Nazionale. The European Social Movement revitalized at the end of 2011, against “particular nationalism,” and proposed a European nation of nations, from Brest to Vladivostok, with Rome as its political capital, Paris as its cultural one, and Berlin as its economic one, and “they [Rome, Paris, and Berlin] must look to Moscow, the Third Rome, to bring peace and prosperity to the world.” 150 Giuliano Castellino, 151 a committed fascist who participated in Forza Nuova, Popolo di Roma, and La Destra, is the key figure in the movement. After an attempt to build up a Black International with Serge Ayoub, the former leader of the French skinheads, 152 he embraced the “Russian cause.” The European Social Movement meetings are open to all the European neofascist formations. 153 Its headquarters is located at the historical MSI branch at Via Ottaviano 9, 154 and its European activism is dedicated to the memory of Miki Mantakas, a Greek student and FUAN 155 activist shot down in 1975 at Piazza Risorgimento during clashes with leftist groups. The program of the European Social Movement is divided into three points: Political Fatherland, Spiritual Fatherland, and Economic Fatherland. It calls for a Eurasianist foreign policy and promotes a corporativist view of society, based on the hierarchy of family-cooperatives-foundations-trade unions, resembling the Falangist program, and echoing Evola’s teachings on the recovery of an ancient and traditional spirituality. CONCLUSION: ITALIAN FASCISTS IN LOVE WITH RUSSIA? The “genealogic tree” of Italian Eurasian neofascist organizations has roots in Julius Evola’s thinking, transmitted to the new generations throught Mutti and Terracciano and, later, Dugin. The Evolian interpretation of tradition has been analyzed by Alfonso Piscitelli, 156 and Andrea Virga dedicated various articles to him. 157 Fratus and his co-thinkers of the Il Talebano circle consider the Evolian works fundamental to their ideological construction. 158 Evola’s conception of traditionalism and his rejection of the post-1789 order is totally assumed in the Il Talebano document presented to the Northern League congress. Italian Neo-Eurasianism was always oriented favorably toward Islam (Mutti himself adheres to the Shi’a teachings) and encouraged

From Evola to Dugin

117

the Iranian revolution, seeing them as useful allies against the postmodern world and Atlanticism. This element collides with the Islamophobic stance of the Northern League, and in the past Murelli had attacked Borghezio for his virulent rhetoric against Islam. 159 Today the contradictory attitude toward Islam does not seem to hamper the new alliance between Italian neo-Eurasianists and Islamophobe populists such as Matteo Salvini or Marine Le Pen. The year 2014 marked a major shift eastward for the Italian neofascist movement. The developments in Ukraine, the progressive worsening of EURussia relations, and the internal conservative shift in Russia were welcomed by Italian Eurasianists as a possible opening to achieve influence in the Italian and Russian political scenes. The discourse of Italian far-rightist Russophiles about the defense of tradition, family values, and anti-Americanism, united with a strong anti-communist position, could develop a hegemonic position inside the fragmented neofascist landscape. The Northern League, on the other hand, has a chance to monopolize that portion of the ideological spectrum, emerging more like a far-rightist party than a right-populist organization. But the most relevant element is the progressive legitimization of the league and other neofascist representatives by a sector of Russian authorities, with such evidence as Salvini’s trip, which was organized by the Russian embassy in Rome, 160 an event without precedent at least since Soviet contacts with the Italian Communist Party. The ties of these organizations not only with Dugin, but with the ultra-decennial Gladio and stay-behind network, seems not to worry Moscow, because they are seen as useful allies, similar to Marine Le Pen, in terms of promoting a Europe of Nations and Traditions, with more than an eye to Russia. NOTES 1. M. Revelli, La destra nazionale (Milan: Il Saggiatore, 1996), 10. 2. Pacini argues that various covert groups existed during the Cold War, beginning with a special office inside the Badoglio cabinet after the 1943 armistice with the Allies, and tracks the emergence of other organizations during the postwar years. G. Pacini, Le altre Gladio. La lotta segreta anticomunista in Italia, 1943–1991 (Turin: Einaudi, 2014). 3. Stephen D. Shenfield, Russian Fascism: Traditions, Tendencies, Movements (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2001), 33. 4. Marlene Laruelle, Russkie natsionalisty i krayne pravye i ikh zapadnye svyazi: ideologicheskie zaimstvovaniya i lichnoe vzaimodeistvie (Moscow: Sova Center, 2014), 92. 5. See: Giovanni Savino, “Il nazionalismo russo: ideologie, organizzazioni, sfera pubblica” (PhD diss., Sum Istituto Italiano di Scienze Umane, Naples, 2012). 6. A survey of the current Nationalist trends is in Giovanni Savino, “La Russia ostaggio del nazionalismo,” MicroMega, March 2, 2014, 176–88. 7. “Finestra anonima, Perché siamo dei Mistici?” Geopolitica 3 (1939): 120, available in M. Antonsich, “La Rivista ‘Geopolitica’ e la sua influenza sulla politica fascista,” Limes 4 (1994): 270. 8. P. D’Agostino Orsini, “Le direttrici geopolitiche dell’espansione italiana alla Mostra delle Terre d’Oltremare,” Rassegna Sociale dell’Africa Italiana 5–6 (1940): 382. 9. Julius Evola, Arte astratta (Rome: Maglione e Strini, 1920).

118

Giovanni Savino

10. Julius Evola, La parole obscure du paysage intérieur (Paris: Collection Dada, 1921). 11. Julius Evola, Il libro della via e della virtù (Lanciano: Carabba, 1923). 12. Julius Evola, L’uomo come potenza (Rome: Atanòr, 1926). 13. Julius Evola, Imperialismo pagano (Padua: Edizioni di Ar, 1996), 24. 14. The Ghibellines supported the Holy Roman Emperor over the pope in the power struggle of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. To Evola, Ghibellin meant subordinating religion to the state, and for this reason he was an advocate of paganism. 15. M. Fraquelli, Il filosofo proibito (Milan: Terziaria, 1994), 261. 16. Evola remembered Farinacci as a “loyal, brave, honest man” in his autobiography. Julius Evola, Il cammino del cinabro (Milan: Vanni Scheiwiller, 1963), 55–56. 17. J. Evola, Rivolta contro il mondo moderno (Milan: Hoepli, 1934). 18. G. Galli, “Prefazione,” in Il filosofo proibito, ed. M. Fraquelli (Milan: Terziaria, 1994), xx–xxi. 19. The Ahnenerbe was an institute in the Third Reich tasked with researching the cultural, archaeological, and genetic history of the Aryan race. It was opened on July 1, 1935, by Heinrich Himmler, Walter Darré, and Herman Wirth. 20. C. Mutti, Julius Evola sul fronte dell’Est (Parma: Edizioni All’insegna del Veltro, 1999), 6–7. 21. J. Evola, “La ‘mistica del sangue’ nel nuovo nazionalismo Tedesco,” Bilychnis 34 (1931): 1–12. 22. Benedetto Croce, “Il Bachofen e la storiografia afilologica,” La Critica, November 20, 1929, 418–31. 23. R. De Felice, Storia degli ebrei italiani sotto il fascism (Turin: Einaudi, 1961), 447. 24. R. Maiocchi, Scienza italiana e razzismo fascista (Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1999), 187. 25. J. Evola, Il mito del sangue (Milan: Hoepli, 1937), 263. 26. Ibid., 73. 27. Ibid., 261. 28. G. Rota, Intellettuali, Dittatura, Razzismo di Stato (Milan: Franco Angeli Editore, 2008), 59. 29. J. Evola, I tre aspetti del problema ebraico (Rome: Mediterranee, 1936), 62–63. These topics are recurrent in Evola’s works, including Il mito del sangue, 198, 205, 233–34, and J. Evola, Sintesi di dottrina della razza (Milan: Hoepli, 1941), 4–5, 118. 30. Evola, Sintesi di dottrina della razza, 119. 31. F. Jesi, Cultura di destra (Milan: Aldo Garzanti Editore, 1979), 97. 32. The question is discussed in ibid., 101–2. 33. M. Brambilla, Interrogatorio alle destre (Milan: Rizzoli, 1995), 26. 34. P. Tosca, Il cammino della tradizione: il tradizionalismo italiano 1920–1990 (Rimini: Il cerchio, 1995), 47. 35. U.M. Tassinari, Fascisteria: Storie, mitografia e personaggi della destra radicale in Italia (Milan: Sperling and Kupfer, 2008), 3. 36. P. Ignazi, Il polo escluso. Profilo del Movimento Sociale Italiano (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1989), 77. 37. Kali Yuga is the age of decline in the Hindu tradition, and Evola used it to describe the “Dark Age” of mankind after World War II. 38. Julian Evola, Gli uomini e le rovine (Rome: Edizioni dell’Ascia, 1953). 39. Julian Evola, Cavalcare la tigre (Milan: Vanni Scheiwiller, 1961). 40. D. Ganser, NATO’s Secret Armies: Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe (New York: Routledge, 2005), 67. 41. D. Conti, L’anima nera della Repubblica (Bari: Laterza, 2013), 15. 42. Ibid., 31. 43. “Black intrigues” (trame nere) is a catchall label to describe the neofascist plots of the 1960s and 1970s. 44. VV. AA. La guerra rivoluzionaria. Atti del Primo Convegno organizzato dall’Istituto Pollio (Rome: Giovanni Volpe Editore, 1965). Available on the site of the Bologna massacre

From Evola to Dugin

119

Victims’ Association. Accessed January 6, 2015, http://www.stragi.it/la_guerra_rivoluzionaria/ index.htm#Presentazione. 45. P. Rauti, “La tattica della penetrazione comunista in Italia” in ibid. Accessed January 6, 2015, http://www.stragi.it/la_guerra_rivoluzionaria/02.htm. 46. R. Mieli, “L’insidia psicologica della guerra rivoluzionaria in Italia,” in ibid. Accessed January 6, 2015, http://www.stragi.it/la_guerra_rivoluzionaria/02.htm. 47. The Chinese posters operation sought to break the unity of the communist bloc, by circulating posters hailing Stalin and Mao against the “revisionist” PCI. 48. F. Calvi and F. Laurént, Piazza Fontana. La verità su una strage (Milan: Mondadori, 1997), 342. 49. The most recent work about the Piano Solo, based on an extensive collection of archival materials and memories, states that Segni was directly involved in the coup; see Mimmo Franzinelli, Il Piano Solo. I servizi segreti, il centro-sinistra e il “golpe” del 1964 (Milan: Mondadori, 2010). 50. Conti, L’anima nera, 38. 51. S. Ferrari, “Grecia 21 aprile 1967: il golpe della CIA,” Osservatorio democratico, May 1, 2007. Accessed January 6, 2015, http://www.osservatoriodemocratico.org/page.asp?ID=28 77&Class_ID=1001. 52. AA. VV., “La strage di stato.” Accessed January 6, 2015, http://www.strano.net/stragi/ tstragi/pfontana/cap2.htm#Mario Merlino Fascista. 53. Tassinari, Fascisteria, 334. 54. Ordine Nuovo had contacts with Thiriart in 1965, according to Conti, L’anima nera, 38. 55. The circumstances of Mutti’s involvement in Thiriart’s movement is in his article “The Struggle of Jean Thiriart.” Accessed January 6, 2015, http://www.eurasia-rivista.org/the-struggle-of-jean-thiriart/13850/. There appears to be a translation error: in the English version Mutti writes about meeting with Thiriart in the 1970s while in the Italian original it is in the 1960s, which seems more logical. Claudio Mutti, “Jean Thiriart e l’impero che verrà.” Accessed January 4, 2014, http://www.eurasia-rivista.org/jean-thiriart-e-limpero-che-verra/13397/. 56. Cardini wrote the foreword for one book on the Giovane Europa story and he is actually on the Scientific Committee of Eurasia—Rivista di studi geopolitici, the review edited by Mutti. See G. Tarantino, Da Giovane Europa ai Campi Hobbit. 1966–1986: Vent’anni di esperienze movimentiste al di là della destra e della sinistra (Naples: Controcorrente, 2011). Stato i Potenza reported Cardini’s membership on the Eurasia Scientific Committee. Accessed January 6, 2015, http://www.statopotenza.eu/1835/franco-cardini-entra-nel-comitato-scientifico-della-rivista-eurasia. 57. The meeting had no success, because Zhou Enlai exposed “a Marxist-Leninist catechism,” according to Thiriart. AA. VV., Da Jeune Europe alle Brigate Rosse. Antiamericanismo e logica dell’impegno rivoluzionario (Milan: Società Editrice Barbarossa, 1992), 24–25. 58. Orsi opened the Italy-China Friendship Society in Ferrara to infiltrate the growing Marxist-Leninist catechism movement of those years. The official Italy-China Society denounced his activities as provocations. “Cronache sovversive,” A Rivista Anarchica, January 9, 1972. Accessed January 10, 2014, http://stragedistato.wordpress.com/2011/10/18/a-rivista-anarchica-n9-gennaio-1972-cronache-sovversive-a-cura-della-redazione/. 59. Tassinari, Fascisteria, 334. 60. Based on new evidence that emerged in 1990, Freda and Giovanni Ventura were implicated in the bombing. However, they cannot be put on trial again because they were acquitted in 1985. 61. Ordine Nero was a neofascist organization established after the government’s dissolution of Ordine Nuovo, which organized bombings from 1974 to 1978. 62. Giannettini, a journalist and MSI activist, played a significant role in the strategy of tension, organizing the bombings and attacks. Along with Rauti, Giannettini promoted the Symposium on Revolutionary Warfare in 1965. Giannettini was connected with Aginter Press, too, and was in the Italian delegation that went to Greece in April 1968. He was an agent of the Servizio Informazioni Difesa (SID), the formal name of the Italian secret service from 1966 through 1977. He also worked at La Rivista Militare, the magazine of the Italian General Staff of Armed Forces. Vincenzo Vinciguerra, responsible for the Peteano bombing in 1972, in 1984

120

Giovanni Savino

started to test the ties between the Italian Far Right, the secret services, and Gladio. He remembered the circumstances of Mutti’s shoes and his ties with Freda and Giannettini here: V. Vinciguerra, “Ancora sullo ‘spontaneismo,’” October 23, 2012. Accessed January 10, 2014, http://www.archivioguerrapolitica.org/?p=3292. 63. Claudio Mutti, La Rivoluzione Culturale Libica (Parma: All’insegna del Veltro, 1973); Claudio Mutti (ed.), Gheddafi Templare di Allah (Padua: Edizioni di Ar, 1975). 64. Feirefiz, La via del cuore. Testi dell’esoterismo islamico (Carmagnola: Edizioni Arktos, 1979). Also see Tassinari, Fascisteria, 38. 65. The episode is in an article in Gnosis, the journal of the Agenzia Informazioni e Sicurezza Interna (AISI), one of the branches of the Italian secret service. “Pulsioni antimondialiste e vecchio antisemitismo. Neofascismo e Islam ovvero le amicizie pericolose,” Gnosis. Rivista italiana di Intelligence 4 (2005). Accessed January 14, 2014, http://gnosis.aisi.gov.it/Gnosis/ Rivista9.nsf/servnavig/7#(4). Many neofascists were sympathetic toward Islam in the 1970s and 1980s, due to a fascination with traditionalism as well as for political purposes. M. Scialoja, “Il nostro agente a Tokyo,” L’Espresso, December 3, 1995, 85. 66. In 1979, Mutti won a job as researcher at the Institute of Italian Culture in Budapest, but after vehement protests by Communist deputies in the Italian Chamber, the invitation was withdrawn. Grego, Figlie della stessa lupa (Rome: Fuoco Edizioni, 2009), 9. 67. Mutti is considered one of the most important neofascist experts on Codreanu and the Iron Guard; VV. AA., Omaggio a Drieu La Rochelle (Parma: Edizioni All’insegna del Veltro, 1997); C. Mutti, Julius Evola sul fronte dell’Est (Parma: Edizioni All’insegna del Veltro, 1999). 68. G. Zyuganov, Stato e Potenza (Parma: Edizioni All’insegna del Veltro, 1999). 69. A. Lattanzio, Songun. Antimperialismo e identità nazionale nella Corea socialista (Parma: Edizioni All’insegna del Veltro, 2012); D.A. Bertozzi and A. Fais, Il Risveglio del Drago. Politica e strategie della rinascita cinese (Parma: Edizioni All’insegna del Veltro, 2012); S. Santini, L’imperialismo verso la prossima guerra? Scenari, cronache, retroscena (Parma: Edizioni All’insegna del Veltro, 2012); A. Fais, L’aquila della steppa. Volti e prospettive del Kazakistan (Parma: Edizioni All’insegna del Veltro, 2012). 70. See his entry on the Wilson Center website. Accessed January 6, 2015, http:// www.wilsoncenter.org/staff/guilietto-chiesa. 71. For example, see Dzh. K’eza, “Evropa pod ser’eznym shantazhom,” Izborsky klub, October, 12, 2014. Accessed January 6, 2015, http://dynacon.ru/content/articles/4095/. 72. Mutti’s son, also known as Sol, is an electronic musician, known for his Eurasianist compositions. His project TSIDMZ is strongly supported by the young activists of the fourth political theory; see “Avatara in Eurasia: An Interview with TSIDMZ,” Open Revolt, February 6, 2013. Accessed January 8, 2014, http://openrevolt.info/2013/02/06/avatara-in-eurasia-ainterview-with-tsidmz/. 73. The Northern League’s newspaper, La Padania, and the (at that time) “national-communist” review Orion, closely followed Mutti’s saga. 74. Centro per la Libertà della Scuola, La contesa di Parma. Processo al professor Mutti (Milan: Terziaria, 2001). 75. A. Ferrari, La Terza Roma (Parma: Edizioni All’insegna del Veltro, 1986). 76. K. Leont’ev, Bizantinismo e mondo slavo (Parma: Edizioni All’insegna del Veltro, 1987). 77. C. Mutti, “Un precursore del pensiero eurasiatista: Konstantin Leont’ev,” Eurasia. Rivista di studi geopolitici, May 11, 2011. Accessed January 6, 2015, http://www.eurasia-rivista.org/un-precursore-del-pensiero-eurasiatista-konstantin-leontev/9385/. 78. A. Ferrari, La rinascita del nazionalismo russo (Parma: Edizioni All’insegna del Veltro, 1989). 79. I. Glazunov, “Lakei ne mogut pravit stranu,” Argumenty i Fakty, February 11, 2009. Accessed January 6, 2015, http://www.aif.ru/society/9188; F. Cucurnia, “Rinasce la Grande Russia. Ecco i nostalgici di Pamjat’,” La Repubblica, February 26, 1988. Accessed January 6, 2015, http://ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/1988/02/26/rinasce-la-granderussia.html. Also in Ferrari, La rinascita, 59–63. 80. Ibid., 8, 32.

From Evola to Dugin

121

81. Murelli was arrested for throwing two hand grenades when police tried to break up a MSI meeting on April 12, 1973. The incident became known as “Black Thursday.” 82. Cited in Tassinari, Fascisteria. 83. M. Murelli, “Sette risposte a sette domande pertinenti,” Aurora 4 (March 1993). Accessed January 6, 2015, http://aurora.altervista.org/04murelli.htm. 84. C. Terracciano, “Perché Cuba?” Origini 6 (1992): 9. 85. See N. Rao, Il Piombo e la Celtica (Milan: Sperling and Kupfer, 2009), 462. 86. Mutti, The Struggle of Jean Thiriart. 87. M. Battarra, “Una visita a Mosca,” Aurora 5 (1993). Accessed January 6, 2015, http:// aurora.altervista.org/05battarra.htm. 88. E. Rosaspina, “I bolscevichi di via Plinio in collegamento con Mosca,” Corriere della Sera, December 16, 1993. 89. C. Terracciano, “Le zanzare sazie e le altre,” Aurora 6 (May 1993). Accessed January 6, 2015, http://aurora.altervista.org/06terracciano2.htm. 90. Delle Chiaie’s press agency, Publicondor, was collateral to Fronte Nazionale. S. Ferrari, “I neofascisti italiani arruolati come sicari e torturatori al soldo di Pinochet,” Liberazione, January 9, 2003. 91. The speech is available on the site of Radio Radicale. Accessed January 6, 2015, http:// www.radioradicale.it/scheda/105123/105596-i-assemblea-programmatica-nazionale-organizzata-dal-fronte-nazionale-italiano-23–24-maggio-presso-i. 92. The Italian antiglobalization movement (in Italy called No-Global) was a mass initiative of Leftist, Ecologist, and Neo-Communist organizations that played a relevant role inside Italian politics at the beginning of the 2000s. Inspired by 1999 Seattle WTO protests, in Italy the movement organized anti-war demonstrations against U.S. policy in the Middle East, with more than three million participants in a demonstration on February 15, 2003, in Rome. 93. C. Terracciano, Rivolta contro il mondialismo moderno (Molfetta: Edizioni Noctua, 2002). The title is clearly an homage to the Evola’s work Rivolta contro il mondo moderno. 94. Terracciano, “‘Destra,’ ‘Sinistra’ e nostalgismi,” in Rivolta contro il mondialismo moderno. Also published in Weltanschauung. Accessed January 6, 2015, http://www .weltanschauung.it/musica/interviste/372-qdestraq-qsinistraq-e-nostalgismi-carlo-terracciano .html. 95. C. Mutti, “Antiglobalisti veri e fasulli,” Rinascita, March 2, 2003. 96. Tiberio Graziani defended his BA in chemistry at Rome’s La Sapienza University in 1978. He currently works as a project manager at Umbria Innovazione, a holding controlled by the regional administration of Umbria, and he is the editor of Geopolitica, after a long partnership with Mutti as head of Eurasia. Graziani established the Institute of Advanced Studies in Geopolitics and Auxiliary Sciences (ISAG), which has a cooperation agreement with La Sapienza University. Graziani was an active translator of extreme right and fascist writers, like Drieu La Rochelle and Dragoš Kalajić, for Edizioni All’insegna del Veltro (Mutti’s publishing house) and Freda’s Edizioni di AR. 97. A. Dugin, “Evraziiskaya ideya v kachestvennom prostranstve,” http://evrazia.info/article/1904. 98. A. Dugin, “L’idea eurasiatista,” Eurasia. Rivista di Studi Geopolitici 1 (2004). 99. D. Scalea, “La grande scommessa del nostro secolo,” La Nazione Eurasia 1 (2004). 100. S. Vernole, “Movimento Eurasia? Apriamo il dibattito,” La Nazione Eurasia 1 (2004). 101. Narochnitskaya is an historian who worked at the Soviet diplomatic mission at the UN in New York from 1982 until 1989. A former Rodina MP, Narochnitskaya now embraces radical Russian nationalism, with a call to expand Orthodoxy. She argues for “full legal continuity” with pre-Soviet Russia, viewing post-World War I Bolshevik treaties that reduced Russian territory as illegitimate. As director of the Paris Institute for Democracy and Cooperation, Narochnitskaya closely works with John Laughland, an extremely conservative British political scientist. 102. From the date Fasci di Combattimento was established, March 23, 1919. Its adherents had an anti-bourgeoisie and anti-monarchist rhetoric. These influences are present in the San Sepolcro Program the first Fascist one, which had populist and quasi-democratic aspects, united with claims of nationalization of industry and pensions for veterans. As Emilio Gentile

122

Giovanni Savino

pointed out, fascism in this phase can be described as a “new kind of association, an anti-party, formed by free spirits of militant politics rejecting the doctrinal and organizational constraints of a party.” Some aspects of the Stato & Potenza program were adopted from the original San Sepolcro. See E. Gentile, Fascismo storia e interpretazione (Bari: Editori Laterza, 2007), 9. 103. “L’ultra-socialista: ‘No agli immigrati nelle Forze Armate,’” Libero Quotidiano, January 6, 2014. Accessed January 6, 2015, http://www.liberoquotidiano.it/news/politica/1381448/ L-ultra-socialista---No-agli-immigrati-nelle-Forze-Armate-.html. 104. “Feccia,” Stato e Potenza, February 23, 2014. Accessed January 6, 2015, http:// www.statopotenza.eu/10551/feccia. 105. “Manifestazioni a Roma e Milano contro la violenza in Ucraina,” La voce della Russia, June 2, 2014. Accessed January 6, 2015, http://italian.ruvr.ru/2014_06_02/Comizi-a-Roma-eMilano-contro-la-violenza-in-Ucraina-7900/. 106. “Il Pdci e l’antifascismo ai tempi della rete,” Militant Blog, October 29, 2013. Accessed January 6, 2015, http://www.militant-blog.org/?p=9799. 107. According to Virga, in the 1930s Cuba had several organizations linked to the Spanish Falange and rooted in the Spanish community on the island. Virga hopes to find a linkage between the local falangist movements and the 1959 Revolution. A. Virga, “Il Falangismo Cubano tra Hispanidad e Fascismo,” Andrea Virga Blog, December 12, 2013. Accessed November 17, 2014, http://andreavirga.blogspot.ru/2013/12/il-falangismo-cubano-tra-hispanidade.html. 108. Biography page, Andrea Virga Blog. Accessed January 6, 2015, http://andreavirga.blogspot.ru/p/biografia.html. 109. Andrea Virga Blog. Accessed January 6, 2015, http://andreavirga.blogspot.ru/search/ label/Andrea%20Gallo. 110. Andrea Virga Blog. Accessed January 6, 2015, http://andreavirga.blogspot.ru/2012/05/ introduzione-pio-filippani-ronconi.html. 111. O.M. Gnerre, “Intervista a Natella Speranskaja,” Nomos. Bollettino di studi e analisi 1 (January 2012): 34–37. 112. A. Dugin, “L’operaio,” Nomos. Bollettino di studi e analisi 5 (February 2013): 38. 113. O.M. Gnerre, “Alexander Dugin in Turchia,” Nomos. Bollettino di studi e analisi 4 (July 2012): 10. 114. “Una prima vittoria. La Statale è antifascista e antirazzista!” InfoAut, January 13, 2014. Accessed January 7, 2015, http://www.infoaut.org/index.php/blog/antifascismoanuove-destre/ item/10270-un-prima-vittoria-la-statale-%C3%A8-antifascista-e-antirazzista. 115. RIA-Novosti originally described the group as a future International Antifascist Brigade. RIA-Novosti, June 10, 2014. Accessed January 7, 2015, http://ria.ru/world/20140610/ 1011481908.html. 116. “La Resistenza nel Donbass e i nerissimi rossobruni di Millenium,” Contropiano, June 12, 2014. Accessed January 7, 2015, http://contropiano.org/articoli/item/24603. 117. On July 11, 1976, Borghezio was arrested at the French border zone in Ventimiglia for possessing a threatening postcard addressed to Judge Luciano Violante and signed by Ordine Nuovo. A. Custodero, “Borghezio, una vita da Haider padano tra ronde tricolori e il mito di Evola,” La Repubblica Inchieste, June, 5, 2012. Accessed January 7, 2015, http://inchieste.repubblica.it/it/repubblica/rep-it/neonazismoeuropeo/2012/06/05/news/borghezio_l _haider_padano-36606062/. 118. S. Ferrari, “Borghezio Story: Da Ordine Nuovo alla Lega Nord. Il percorso esemplare di un razzista,” Osservatorio democratico, December 2, 2012. Accessed January 7, 2015, http:// www.osservatoriodemocratico.org/page.asp?ID=2506&Class_ID=1004. 119. M. Murelli, “Occidente: fronte infame,” Orion, October 2001. 120. “Leghista violento su minore,” Corriere della Sera, June 23, 1993. 121. M. Travaglio, “Il leghista Borghezio rischia il carcere,” La Repubblica, March 12, 2002. 122. “Borghezio (Lega) eletto al Centro con i voti di CasaPound,” Il Secolo XIX, May 26, 2014. Accessed July 10, 2014, http://www.ilsecoloxix.it/p/speciali/2014/05/26/AR8cW8Q-borghezio_casapound_eletto.shtml. 123. Information taken from his site Vincenzo Sofo, il talebano della Lega, http://vincenzosofo.net/.

From Evola to Dugin

123

124. Fratus part of the Fiamma Tricolore list for the 1997 Milan elections. “Lista del Movimento Sociale Fiamma Tricolore,” Corriere della Sera, April 16, 1997. 125. F. Fratus et al., “Documento di Idee,” Il Talebano.com, July 2014, 1–2. Accessed January 7, 2015, https://iltalebano.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/documento-di-idee_iltalebano.pdf. 126. Ibid., 27–28. 127. Ibid., 12. 128. Ibid., 13. 129. “Roberto Jonghi incontra Alexander Dugin,” Roberto Jonghi Supporters website, July 7, 2014. Accessed July 10, 2014, http://jonghisupporters.blogspot.ru/2014/07/roberto-jonghi-incontra-alexander-dugin.html. 130. G. Polli, “Sanzioni alla Russia, Salvini sta con Zaia: Ora la Lombardia,” La Padania, October 6, 2014, Accessed July 10, 2014, http://www.lapadania.net/Detail_News_Display ?ID=4644&typeb=0&Sanzioni-alla-Russia-Salvini-sta-con-Zaia-Ora-la-Lombardia. 131. “Salvini: ‘L’Europa torni a dialogare con Mosca,’” La Padania, October 15, 2014. Accessed October 15, 2014, http://www.lapadania.net/Detail_News_Display?ID=4906. 132. Ferrari’s website, http://maxferrari.net/, is translated into Russian, although Ferrari doesn’t speak Russian himself. 133. Komov is working on his kandidat dissertation at the Department of Sociology at Moscow State University, under the direction of Anatolii Antonov. “Ob avtore,” Blog Alekseya Komova. Accessed January 7, 2015, http://alexeykomov.ru/ob-avtore-3. 134. “I gruppi del potere mondialista vogliono una Guerra globale,” Lombardirussia.org, May 10, 2014. Accessed January 7, 2015, http://www.lombardiarussia.org/index.php/component/content/article/56-categoria-slide/291-i-gruppi-del-potere-mondialista-vogliono-una-guerra-globale. 135. “Ecco perché la mia Russia, a un passo dal suicidio umano e demografico, ha deciso di dire sì alla vita,” Lombardirussia.org, Accessed January 7, 2015, http://www .lombardiarussia.org/index.php/component/content/article/56-categoria-slide/244-leccoperche-la-mia-russia-a-un-passo-dal-suicidio-umano-e-demografico-ha-deciso-di-dire-si-allavitar. 136. “Irina Osipova: identità russa e dialogo europeo,” Lombardirussia.org, April 10, 2014. Accessed January 7, 2015, http://www.lombardiarussia.org/index.php/eventi/263-irina-osipova-identita-russa-e-dialogo-europeo. 137. Antonini did not publicize his visit in Moscow, but there are various pictures on Facebook and on his public page. Accessed January 7, 2015, https://www.facebook.com/ 476190805849328/photos/a.479846748817067.1073741828.476190805849328/51797539500 4202/?type=1&theater. 138. Casa Pound started as a neofascist squatters’ movement in Rome, taking over various abandoned state-owned buildings in the city. Then, the “Fascists of Third Millennium” (as they usually refer to themselves) organized a political movement, called Casa Pound Italia, expanding their activities in other Italian regions, with many clashes with antifascist forces. 139. The Right Sector originated as a coalition of different Ukrainian extreme nationalists and neo-Nazis during the Maidan events in 2013 and became a political party in March 2014. 140. E. Palazzini, “La protesta che non si arresta. Intervista a un nazionalista ucraino,” Il Primato Nazionale, December 19, 2013. Accessed October 3, 2014, http://www .ilprimatonazionale.it/2013/12/19/la-protesta-che-non-si-arresta-intervista-ad-un-nazionalistaucraino/. Tryzub (Trident), led by Dmytro Yarosh, is a far-rightist organization that promoted the Right Sector. 141. G. Savino, “L’infatuazione putiniana della Lega, tra neofascisti italiani e Dugin,” MicroMega Online, October 22, 2014. Accessed October 22, 2014, http://temi.repubblica.it/micromega-online/linfatuazione-putiniana-della-lega-tra-neofascisti-italiani-e-dugin/. 142. The Russian Federal Agency for the Commonwealth of Independent States, Compatriots Living Abroad, and International Humanitarian Cooperation. 143. Andriy Mokhnyk met with representatives of the Forza Nuova party. Svoboda Official Site, October 14, 2013. Accessed October 10, 2014, http://en.svoboda.org.ua/news/events/ 00001771/.

124

Giovanni Savino

144. R. Fiore, “Lettera aperta al Segretario Nazionale del Partito Nazionalista Ucraino Svoboda, Oleg Tiahnybok,” Atuttadestra.net, February 27. 2014. Accessed October 10, 2014, http:/ /www.atuttadestra.net/index.php/archives/235095. 145. B. Frigerio, “Ecco perché la mia Russia, a un passo dal suicidio umano e demografico, ha deciso di dire sì alla vita,” Notizie Pro Vita, March 7, 2014. Accessed October 10, 2014. http://www.notizieprovita.it/notizie-dal-mondo/ecco-perche-la-mia-russia-a-un-passo-dal-suicidio-umano-e-demografico-ha-deciso-di-dire-si-alla-vita/. 146. “Andrea Palmeri è scomparso: non si trova più da un mese,” Il Tirreno, July 4, 2014. Accessed October 10, 2014, http://iltirreno.gelocal.it/lucca/cronaca/2014/07/04/news/andreapalmeri-e-uccel-di-bosco-non-si-trova-piu-da-un-mese-1.9533117. 147. I. Osipova, “Intervista esclusiva con il volontario italiano nel Donbass Andrea Palmeri,” Rodnoi Rim, October 9, 2014. Accessed October 9, 2014, http://rodnoirim.org/andreapalmeridonbassita/. 148. R. Zunini, “L’internazionale fascio-comunista di Putin,” Il Fatto Quotidiano, September 3, 2014. Accessed September 3, 2014, http://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/2014/09/03/linternazionale-fascio-comunista-di-putin/1107567/. 149. “Mosca, Forza Nuova al Forum internazionale della famiglia,” Atuttadestra.net, September 9, 2014. Accessed October 10, 2014, http://www.atuttadestra.net/index.php/archives/ 259601; “Vtoroi den foruma ‘Mnogodetnaya semya I budushchee chelovechestva,’” Tsentr Natsionalnoi Slavi, September 16, 2014. Accessed October 10, 2014, http://www.cnsr.ru/presstsentr/novosti-fonda/vtoroy-den-foruma-mnogodetnaya-semya-i-budushchee-chelovechestva-/. 150. Patria politica, MSE. Accessed October 10, 2014, http://www.movimento socialeeuropeo.eu/?page_id=53. 151. See his Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Giuliano-Castellino/1160 66441809884. 152. M. Pasqua, Il movimento nel nome di Miki Mantakas. MSE, I neofascisti che vogliono l’Europa, La Repubblica, June 5, 2012. Accessed January 26, 2014, http://inchieste.repubblica.it/it/repubblica/rep-it/2012/06/05/news/nel_nome_di_miki_mantakas _la_nuova_internazionale_neofascista-36592593/. 153. M. Pasqua, Roma, raduno internazionale di fascisti. Il proclama: “Riconquistiamo l’Europa,” La Repubblica, February 25, 2012. Accessed January 26, 2014, http:// www.repubblica.it/cronaca/2012/02/25/news/roma_raduno_internazionale_di_neofascisti _il_proclama_riconquistiamo_l_europa-30513605/. 154. M. Pasqua, MSE, sabato a Roma sfilano i neofascisti: al via campagna sul web per impedire il corteo. L’allarme dell’ANPI, Huffington Post, November 5, 2012. Accessed January 26, 2014, http://www.huffingtonpost.it/2012/11/05/mse-sabato-10-novembre-raduno_n_2076348.html. 155. Fronte Universitario d’Azione Nazionale, the student organization of MSI. 156. A. Piscitelli, “L’individuo assoluto e I suoi critici,” in Teoria dell’individuo assoluto, ed. J. Evola (Rome: Edizioni Mediterranee, 1998), 207–22. 157. A. Virga, “Il ‘Barone Nero’: vita ed opere di Julius Evola,” L’arrivista. Quaderni democratici 2 (2011): 99–105. 158. F. Fratus, “Conoscere Julius Evola,” Il Talebano.com, January 15, 2014. Accessed November 17, 2014, http://iltalebano.com/2014/01/15/conoscere-julius-evola/; L. Carbone, “Il vero esito della seconda guerra mondiale (orientamento #1),” Il Talebano.com, September 18, 2013. Accessed November 17, 2014, http://iltalebano.com/2013/09/18/il-vero-esito-della-seconda-guerra-mondiale-orientamento-1/; L. Carbone, “Superare l’uomo del dopoguerra (orientamento # 2),” Il Talebano.com, September 25, 2013. Accessed November 17, 2014, http:// iltalebano.com/2013/09/25/superare-luomo-del-dopoguerra-orientamento-2/. 159. M. Murelli, “Occidente: fronte infame,” Orion, October 2001. 160. This was stated by Gianluca Savoini in a declaration to the Italian press agency AGI, and reported in A. Lesnevskaya, “Lega, Salvini in Russia alla Duma: ‘No alle sanzioni Ue’. E la Padania lo celebra,” Il Fatto Quotidiano, October 15, 2014. Accessed October 15, 2014, http:// www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/2014/10/15/lega-salvini-in-russia-no-alle-sanzioni-ue-e-la-padania-lo -celebra/1156830/.

Chapter Six

Arriba Eurasia? The Difficult Establishment of Neo-Eurasianism in Spain Nicolas Lebourg

As a movement, neo-Eurasianism is far removed from the nationalist traditions of Spanish politics. It was imported as part of the long quest for new ideas and doctrinal references that followed the dictatorship of General Francisco Franco, who ruled from 1939 to 1975. Neo-Eurasianism is one of the ideological products patched together in the hope of resolving a political impasse—the far right has been limited to around 1 percent of the vote since the return to representative democracy in 1977. In addition to electoral impotence, the Spanish extreme right is characterized by exceptional fragmentation and powerful heteronomy compared with its European counterparts, especially in France and Italy. Alexander Dugin conducts regular conferences in Spain. He has always been hosted by the same small group led by Juan Antonio Llopart, through its various iterations (Alternativa Europa in Barcelona in 1994, the Movimiento Social Republicano in Madrid in 2013). This group grafted elements of Dugin’s theories to preexisting European nationalist contributions, while also following an electoral strategy modeled on Marine Le Pen’s National Front in France. This made for a heterogeneous mix, the coherence of which existed within the Spanish radical extreme right, but probably little for the masses. Understanding this gap requires comprehending the upheavals of the Hispanic nationalist space within the European context. Within this substratum, neo-Eurasianist theses were imported as part of a global reorganization of the European radical right. Hence the Movimiento Social Republicano (Republican Social Movement—MSR) arose to take a fragile place in the country’s political landscape. 125

126

Nicolas Lebourg

THE IMPORT OF EUROPEAN NATIONALIST REFERENCES With Franco in power, the margins of the Spanish radical extreme right often opted for a type of nationalism that differentiated it from the autarkic national-Catholicism of the regime. To exist, the extreme radical right continued to look to Europe and transnational relations. The prestigious Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset already was able to express his Europeanism in The Young Europe, a journal the Third Reich published in 1942 to promote “European liberation” through the participation of European intellectuals and collaborators such as the Italian Julius Evola or the French Marcel Déat. 1 However, neo-paganism and esotericism were weaker in Spain as compared to many other European countries; even the most radicals often retained an attachment to the Roman Catholic Church, which partly explains the profound difficulties the New Right experienced in establishing itself in the country. In 1951, Spaniards participating in the Malmö meeting gave rise to the European Social Movement (MSE). However, the two essential experiences to comprehend the structuring of the Spanish New Right were those of Young Europe (YE) and the Círculo Español de Amigos de Europa (Spanish Circle of the Friends of Europe—CEDADE). It was on this dual basis of the “national communalism” of YE and the European nationalism derived from CEDADE that neo-Eurasianism made its contributions in the 1990s. Founded in 1961, Young Europe is a European party. Its national staff, led by a European headquarters and subdivided into thematic offices with six-person “action cells,” ensures a cohesive agenda. 2 In 1964, after the split with Emile Lecerf—who called for a neo-Nazi-inspired Europe of ethnic groups—Jean-François Thiriart and Young Europe advocated for a single, Jacobin, and secular European state “from Reykjavik to Vladivostok.” The Spanish Young Europe group managed the organization’s European summer camp in 1966 and translated Thiriart’s book, An Empire of 400 Million: Europe, under the evocative title ¡Arriba Europa! Una Europa Unida: a imperio 400 millones de hombres. 3 The camp mixed sports activities with debates and organized a wreath-laying ceremony at the tomb of José Antonio Primo de Rivera, the founder of Falange Española. Songs of the Falange, Afrika Korps, French resistance, and Italian partisans were sung around the campfires. 4 However, Young Europe quickly fell into trouble in Spain. In March 1967, the authorities banned its nine-country conference in Madrid at the last minute. Thiriart saw in this move signs of U.S. influence on the Francoist state. 5 Ernesto Milá suggested more prosaically that, despite Young Europe’s good contacts in the Franco regime, Thiriart had no way of understanding Spain’s pro-U.S. geopolitical position and that YE Spain would have to awkwardly address the European group’s fiery anti-American discourse with the Spanish authorities. 6 Thiriart thus exited Hispanic nationalist political

Arriba Eurasia?

127

culture until the French New Resistance rediscovered him in 1991. Meanwhile, only Ernesto Milá tried to carry on this legacy, but he insisted that Spain should play an interfacing role in the new Europe because of its role in Latin America. By working with Spaniard José Cuadrado Costa, Thiriart came around to the idea that only Russia could build a greater Europe. In 1984, in the journal of the National European Communitarian Party (PCN), Cuadrado Costa introduced references to the Russian Eurasianist movement of the 1920s. He believed the Soviet Union would be well advised to embrace these ideas. Citing Ortega y Gasset, the Falangist Ramiro Ledesma Ramos, Stalin, and Thiriart, he stuck to the idea of a pan-European space that was closed to China and India, among others, a view corresponding to that of a Europe “from Dublin to Vladivostok.” 7 CEDADE was founded in 1962 by members of the Young Europe group in Madrid and was registered as a “cultural association” in Barcelona in 1966. 8 For CEDADE, the fundamental flaw of Thiriart was his materialism. 9 The movement experienced a rapid ideological evolution, leading to a neoNazi position in 1969, demonstrating an unprecedented degree of racialism and anti-Semitism in the Spanish extreme right (only 0.05 percent of the population is Jewish; however, hostility to Israel is common). 10 It thus maintained relationships with the New European Order (NEO), founded in 1951 when the ex-communist, ex-Trotskyite, and ex-Waffen SS Frenchman René Binet split from the MSE (from its beginning, NEO defended decolonization and advocated the return of migrants to Africa in order to preserve each continent from biological and cultural mixing). NEO held its congresses in Barcelona in 1969, 1979, and 1981. 11 In particular, CEDADE was linked to the French neo-Nazis of the National and European Action Federation (FANE). Among the groups linked to CEDADE were the National Socialist Party of Spain (Partido Nacional Socialista Español—PENS), with its bulletins Nuevo Orden and Joven Europa, and smaller groups such as Youth Association Jaime I (Asociación Juvenil Jaime I) for young people, the National Revolutionary Movement (Movimiento Nacional Revolucionario), and the Spanish Social Movement (Movimiento Social Español). External references are apparent in these names, and PENS maintained ties with Stefano della Chiae, who led the Avanguardia Nazionale (National Vanguard), which was deeply involved in terrorism in Italy. CEDADE formed its own party in 1979, the European National Party (Partido Revolucionario Nacional Europeo), but primarily dedicated itself to publishing anti-Semitic and revisionist texts. 12 This status of relative importance allowed for the translation of Imperium by the American Francis Parker Yockey, the CEDADE’s racial-Europeanist reference. 13 Fragmentation and ideological ferment were very present since the Spanish extreme right did not have the militant training or electoral

128

Nicolas Lebourg

power to make itself an influential group. Multiple factions claimed to be the authentic Falange, and the New Force (Fuerza Nueva) party founded by Blas Pinar failed to win despite its participation on the Euro-right list in the 1979 European elections. 14 The “revolutionary traditionalism” of Franco Freda (improperly called “Nazi-Maoism” by the Italian press) also resonated in Spain. The French People’s Fight Organization announced, after a similar statement by the Italian Lotta di Popolo, that with their arrival on the peninsula, the European Revolutionary Liaison Committee should see the “underground” birth of a Lucha del Pueblo section, built by members of PENS and Movimiento Social Español. 15 The operation collapsed, as the Spaniards preferred to work with the Avanguardia Nazionale militants. 16 Finally, the Spanish nationalist-revolutionary movement emerged through two distinct dynamics, which together formed the basis of the whole history of the Spanish New Right movement. The first is the founding in 1976 of the Authentic Assemblies of NationalSyndicalist Offensive (Falange Española de las Juntas de Auténtica Ofensiva Nacional Sindicalista), inspired by the original fascist movement. The second came from a CEDADE split, which in 1978 gave way to the National Revolutionary Youth (Juventud Revolucionaria Nacional). In 1983, some of its members founded Autonomous Bases (Las Bases Autonomas—BA), not a group in itself but a grassroots network like those in Germany and France. Although mainly located in Madrid’s universities, BA became the Spanish Nationalist-Revolutionary reference. They played on ideological oscillation by claiming the mythical figure of the Spanish anarchist Durruti, an antifascist fighter in the Spanish Civil War, therefore foreshadowing the dialectology that Troy Southgate developed fifteen years later. Their international contacts should not be underestimated. On April 3, 1987, the BA and the Phalanx of Assemblies of National-Syndicalist Offensive (Falange de las JONS) attended a meeting in Paris convened by the French group Third Way, along with the Belgian New Forces Party and the Portuguese Movimiento de Accao Nacional. The ideological charter that they put together was the work of the French Third Way group, which published its “Manifesto of the European Nation” in 1986, to be approved organizationby-organization (starting with the Falange Española). After this meeting, the Italians of Terza Posizione and the Swiss Third Way joined the network. Thiriart aptly described the loose form of contacts among the organizations, dubbed the “March 12 Group,” as “the International of mailboxes.” 17 This French influence gave rise to the Spanish Third Way, which integrated the March 12 Group. It was led by Alberto Torresano and published the newsletter Revolucion europea, the title of which was taken from the French Third Way newspaper. 18 In 1989, it joined with the Coordinadora Alternativa Solidarista (founded in 1988 by a host of small groups) to create the Solidarist Third Way (Tercera Via Solidarista). At the helm of the organization

Arriba Eurasia?

129

were Secretary-General Juan Antonio Llopart (from the Juventudes del Frente Nacional of Barcelona) and President Alberto Torresano. In 1992, the Solidarist Third Way merged with the Vanguardia group, whose youth section took the name Joven Europa. Vanguardia was clearly neofascist, as evidenced by their use of the double ax of the Italian Ordien Nuovo. Denouncing Vanguardia’s “right turn,” Llopart and his allies kept their newspaper, Tribuna de Europa, and, following a European meeting, were the first group to invite Alexander Dugin to Spain. 19 THE NATIONAL-BOLSHEVIK ERA Many extreme-right Spanish movements have sought to copy Le Pen in France, particularly in their anti-immigration sentiment—a tough bet in a country with 300,000 Roma, but where only 0.9 percent of the population were immigrants, of whom only 0.4 percent came from outside the European Union. 20 Tribuna de Europa simply recognized the impossibility of transforming neo-Francoism in quasi-Le Penism. The evolution of the Spanish Nationalist-Revolutionary passed through France. In 1989, Third Way Secretary-General Christian Bouchet said his organization had two choices: either form a movement within the National Front (FN) or break with it and try to work within other groups dealing with ecological or regional issues, and with Islamic movements. 21 His central idea was to challenge the FN from the left, imposing on Jean-Marie Le Pen a Nationalist-Revolutionary movement that only existed inside the party in 1974–1978, but the FN president rejected this faction. Led by Bouchet and André-Yves Beck, the rest of the Third Way was forced to hide their defeat. In 1991, they founded New Resistance, an organization dedicated to rejecting the FN, operating in the style of Ernst Niekisch’s National-Bolshevism, and the union of the periphery against the center. 22 Their promotion of a united antisystem front clearly influenced Alain de Benoist, the leader of GRECE, the main organization of the New Right. 23 European members of the New Right were interacting constantly, and the invitation to Dugin for the November 24, 1991, GRECE colloquium showed that this space was searching for post-Soviet ideological reconstruction. In order to make itself credible to Malliarakis, who stayed with Third Way, New Resistance contacted the March 12 organizations to propose a new international, the European Liberation Front—ELF, the name being taken from Parker Yockey. It was implemented much faster than had been expected, since the New Resistance founding congress gave itself the objective of creating a “representative European secretariat” in two years. The organization stipulated that all groups linked to Third Way would choose it. 24

130

Nicolas Lebourg

Organizational icons also united the diverse nationalities in the ELF: all the cadres were influenced by the examples of Thiriart’s Young Europe, Otto Strasser’s European Popular Movement, and Yockey’s Front, and fascinated by the example of the Fourth Unified International Secretariat. 25 Taken together, the diverse national publications also demonstrate Evola’s strong influence (as could those of “Nazi-Maoist” Claudio Mutti in the ELF), but the ideological attitude was postmodern. The groups did their work with Evola or Thiriart, borrowing from them along the way as needed. This nondogmatic Evolism was palpable in the ELF and likely contributed to the adaptation of Dugin’s theses, which also were influenced, but not determined, by Evola. Moreover, when Dugin sponsored a conference in Madrid in 2013, he opened it with a long summary of Il Fascismo visto dalla Destra and voiced a radical antimodernism more than a conservative-revolutionary critique. 26 The “new convergences” he advocated led to the import into Western Europe of the Russian red-brown label. But they did not correspond to a real alliance between “communists” and “nationalists.” Within the ELF, as within the groups that composed the red-brown alliance, it was actually an alliance of the “right” wing (völkisch cultural European nationalism) and “left” wing (the New Right) of the radical extreme-right. Thus the Tribuna de Europa published articles by Ramón Bau, the former CEDADE secretarygeneral who led Mundo NS (National-Socialist Earth). 27 While not blocked by a powerful national-populist party, Vangardia also was experiencing the difficulties of groupuscules. Its participation in the ELF led it to adapt to its intellectual ancestors. This included the denunciation of the “System,” which the French extreme right itself had used since the 1950s, having borrowed it from the German Conservative Revolution of the 1920s. The National-Bolshevik eagle, which the New Resistance took back from Niekisch’s Widerstand, was presented as the emblem of the French Nationalist-Revolutionaries. 28 After, the eagle and the appellation “National-Bolshevism” are adopted together Vangardia translated and distributed a French sticker against the globalization of McDonald’s. The ELF also seemed to implement common strategies: in a coordinated move the groups tried to infiltrate environmentalist parties in Spain and France, as well as in Germany, Poland, Great Britain, and Italy. 29 The connection with Russia was becoming increasingly comfortable before the Western European radicals took a trip to Moscow in the summer of 1992. 30 In France, Eduard Limonov contributed to L’idiot international, an anti-American periodical that supported rapprochement between the French Communist Party and the National Front, as well as the Choc du mois, a journal that interfaced between the FN and the radical extreme right. 31 In Spain, the European nationalist circles first noticed Dugin’s work. In 1992, even before it was published in Russia, Rusia, El Misterio de Eurasia was released in Madrid by the publisher Grupo Libro 88, whose director was

Arriba Eurasia?

131

a former member of CEDADE, which explains the neo-Nazi reference to 88. When it voluntarily dissolved the following year, CEDADE orphaned the organization’s militants, but hybridized politics and esotericism. However, the ethnic obsession led them to participate more in an Islamophobic, populist, and Spanish group, Democracia Nacional, than to rally to neo-Eurasianist perspectives. 32 The reconfiguration of the European radical extreme right continued in 1993. While the Franco-Belgian New Right was full of tension and the Spanish New Right had just produced Hespérides, the Community Activities Federation in Europe, a nonexistent structure that served to dress up a European neo-rightist university, organized a “summer university” in Lourmarin in southwestern France and brought together people in conflict with Alain de Benoist. Two members of GRECE set it up: Thierry Mudry, who associated New Right and neo-rightist circles in France with völkisch leanings (European Partisan, Nationalism and Republic, the Provence Forum, and the New Resistance) and his wife Christiane Pignacé (also a member of the Scientific Council of the FN). At the European level, the confluence ended in 1994, when Belgian Robert Steuckers managed the separation from GRECE by launching Synergies européennes. 33 Synergies promoted a differentiated neo-Eurasianism by devising a Paris-Berlin-Moscow axis. This Russian angle first was promoted in France by the People’s Fight Organization, in particular Jean Parvulesco, 34 a member of Synergies européennes and significantly inspired by Dugin’s thinking. 35 At the same time, another Franco-Belgian crisis appeared, which resulted in the transformation of the ELF. In October 1993, the ELF excluded the PCN for being “reactionary.” This included contacts with the Vlaams Blok and the Belgian National Front, and the proposed adoption of an Islamophobic campaign (under the slogan, “Europe will not be an Islamic republic”) while the ELF wished to move forward in conjunction with radical Muslim groups. European Synergies and the PCN collaborated and, without knowing it, PCN members applied to French authorities to receive official status for the ELF. 36 The PCN launched a new journal in which it claimed to be the European partner of the Russian National Salvation Front (while Dugin still was participating in the ELF) and opting for a line affirming that Islamism was a tool of the American order and that Europe and Islam were irreconcilable. 37 In the aftermath of the wars in the former Yugoslavia, the PCN introduced, via Yves Bataille, the Serbian argument. 38 According to it, Serbs were defending Europe from the menace posed by the creation of an Islamic state in Europe, which would benefit U.S. objectives that sought to destabilize the continent. 39 The break between the ELF and European Synergies was less severe. In an internal note, the secretary-general of the ELF and New Resistance stated that although the structure was excellent in Spain and Por-

132

Nicolas Lebourg

tugal, “in France and Belgium it is a small extreme right group on the margins of the FN.” 40 On the Spanish side, upon return to Lourmarin, Juan Antonio Llopart and his allies launched Alternativa Europea (AE), which was fully consistent with the orientations of the ELF. As its logo the organization adopted the five-pointed star commonly used by the New Resistance, which claimed that it was the symbol of “diverse anti-Yankee guerilla movements.” 41 In reality it is the emblem of the Tupamaros (a left-wing movement in Uruguay), which the Red Brigade had introduced to Europe. 42 The ideological hybridization was accomplished in the fourth issue of Tribuna de Europa, with the publication of an interview with Dugin. 43 On the summer solstice, Barcelona was one of the destinations of the Russian theoretician, while the ELF invited him to tour Western Europe (Grenoble, Milan, and Paris) from June 16 to July 1, 1994. Alternativa Europea deemed it a successful “full house,” even though published photographs show more modest crowds. 44 The following spring, Tribuna de Europa clearly marked a new inclination by publishing the entire transcript of a Dugin presentation on Evola and a dossier on Eurasianism translated in Vouloir, the journal of European Synergies. 45 Alternativa Europea also held a seminar on the opportunity to transform itself into the Partido Nacional Republicano. 46 To do so, it borrowed wording from the French on the concept of “identity.” 47 It is true that Alternativa Europea was growing and did not have any enemies on the right. It was discussed favorably in Éléments, de Benoist’s review, and worked with Mundo NS. Highlighting an international affiliation allowed Alternativa Europea to extract itself from the infighting that had overtaken the Falangist space. It also moved from being a Barcelona bastion to opening sections in Madrid, Valencia, La Coruna, Vigo, Zaragoz, León, and Almeria. 48 The idea of the organization was to bring together all radical extremeright movements under its Partido Nacional Republicano, along the ideological lines of the ELF. However, discussions with other groups brought with them the byzantine quarrels of which the extreme Spanish right was fond, leading Alternativa Europea to quit the PNR project. The Spaniards, French, and Germans of the ELF then held a joint meeting in Paris. They decided to: (1) draft an ideological manifesto that each group had to accept in order to be members of the ELF; (2) launch a coordinated agitprop campaign against NATO; and (3) work patiently to found a European party. 49 Nevertheless, the Spanish projects were affected by Franco-Belgian enmity. New Resistance was shaken by turbulence following the reconciliation of part of its leadership with the FN, especially by the fact that André-Yves Beck joined the FN mayor of Orange. Certain members did not like the signals given to the former National and European Action Federation neoNazi Michel Caignet, organizer of the review Gaie France. Soon after Caignet was arrested for organizing a pedophilia network. This apparent combi-

Arriba Eurasia?

133

nation of juvenile pederasty and the New Right was controversial. Faced with attacks, Christian Bouchet resigned and announced that he would manage affairs until a congress could be convened on November 30, 1996. 50 The PCN took the opportunity to go on the offensive and created the status of New Resistance. 51 It announced that the militants of New Resistance would be excluded from management for their “collaboration with the Le Penist reaction” and with Satanist-pedophile militants and then voted to merge with PCN structures, putting the ELF under a Black-Red-Green front. 52 Alternativa Europa and ELF groups unanimously rejected this organization and maintained their relationship with the remnants of the former organization, which renamed itself Resistance Circles. 53 The New Resistance congress carried on. Their constitution was decided on the margins of the FN, along the lines of that of the New Right and based on publicity committees of the Voice of the People (the new name of the Struggle of the People), calling for unity among nationalists above all else. The ideological line was synthesized in the following terms: “In short, ‘Less leftism, more fascism!’” The internal bulletin informed its subscribers that all ELF groups had renewed their confidence in the leadership team and conveyed the difficulty of managing an international New Right. Thus the result of the congress was rightward shift, from which a logical conclusion could be drawn: it is necessary to break with foreign groups aligned with the “left.” 54 In Great Britain, the ELF was displaced, with the general-secretary post passing to Troy Southgate. The primacy in the community of references to ideological coherence was evidenced in the title of the European journal, which at the time the second ELF thought to produce in four or five languages, for a total of about one thousand copies: Young Europe. 55 However, for Alternativa Europea, the French path could not be replicated in Spain, since no party there had absolute hegemony over the liberal-conservative right. 56 Alternativa Europea held its own congress in July 1997, opened with a message from Dugin, and featured presentations from the Frenchmen Christian Bouchet and Gregory Ombruck (Napalm Rock 57). The movement decided to found a Nationalist-Revolutionary party, a subversive matter of reputation since in this country with a Christian, Atlanticist, centrist, and monarchist right, the party was named Alternativa Europa-Liga Social Republicana (AE-LSR) and promoted federalism as much in “the Spains” as in the rest of Europe. This would be a Europe that included Russia, more than a Eurasia, along with many other Western ELF groups. Although the notion of empire was cultivated, ethno-nationalist worries prevented the full adoption of neo-Eurasianist theses. 58 At the end of 1997, the ELF merged with the Committee for a Nationalist-Revolutionary League, which was based in England. There it came into constant contact with the Liaison Committee of the Nationalist-Revolutionaries, the structure of which comprised of movements situated in the United

134

Nicolas Lebourg

States, Canada, and New Zealand. It was a clear departure from European thinking and a move toward white affirmation, but the ideological shift seems to have occurred easily. The September 19, 1998, meeting that established the new ELF was part of the annual festival of the FN, hitherto the supposed sworn enemy. 59 Tribuna de Europa published the list of member groups of the new ELF, which included Dugin’s National-Bolshevik party. 60 In 1999, Southgate published a manifesto for the organization, 61 centered around the idea of defending the white race against a Zionist plot that supposedly sought to bastardize the white race in order to assure global control (along the lines of a classic theme, but notable for its diffusion of the American acronym ZOG—Zionist Occupation Government––in Europe at the end of the decade, under the influence of the U.S. magazine Resistance. 62) Alternativa Europea expresses interest in anti-Semitism but has never exhibited much of it. The group did not publicize this text, and the second ELF slowly collapsed. BETWEEN RADICALISM AND POPULISM The most important issues to AE-LSR were support for the extension of autonomy, violent rejection of the monarchy, socialist references (extending to references to the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo and German councilism 63), and European claims. This stood in sharp contrast to mainstream Spanish political life, which long had been dominated by José María Aznar (Partido Popular), head of government from 1996 to 2004, who aligned Madrid’s policies with those of Washington. By transforming itself in 1999 into the Movimiento Social Republicano (MSR), AE-LSR mimicked the metamorphosis of New Resistance into Radical Unity, a so far near-perfect imitation of its skinhead magazine to a youth audience. This work to reach young skinheads appears to have produced results starting in 2010, when eighteen members of Blood and Honor were arrested for acts of violence, and seventeen of them ran on the MSR ticket in elections. 64 Militants from the two sides of the Pyrenees met regularly and, in 2001, jointly produced an anti-Zionist bumper sticker in the Catalan language. 65 The group also tried to move beyond the interior Spanish enclave. For the 2000 general elections, the MSR joined with three other nationalist movements to form the España 2000 platform. Despite support from JeanMarie Le Pen, the platform obtained only 0.04 percent of the vote. The ELF disintegrated in 2002, with the departure of Radical Unity’s Christian Bouchet, followed by the dissolution of this movement by the French public authorities. This led to the establishment in France of the Social European Movement Identity Bloc in tandem with the MSR. According to Philippe Vardon, one of the Identity leaders, the titular reference is to

Arriba Eurasia?

135

the MSR, not the MSE. The Bloc identitaire, MSR, and Nation of Belgians moved closer together, but the Bloc abandoned all fascist references, converting radical anti-Zionism to Islamophobia, leaving aside the Greater Europe of regions project in favor of the articulation of French-European regions, leading to the separation. In retrospect, Vardon thought that the socialist and European references fell under a national-revolutionary label. Young Catalans pushed the MSR to conform to the French line, but it was in vain. 66 The MSR and Nation of Belgians only began to represent a new international partnership when the Italian group Movimento Sociale Europeo joined them in 2011. In addition, the MSR maintained ties with the American Front, which had participated in the second ELF (and was renamed Open Revolt). 67 Having mounted the Radical Network in France, Bouchet launched with the Italian Sinistra Nazionale (publishers of the daily Rinascita) a Eurasian Geopolitics Network that attempted to follow the ELF and published the Eurasian Nation review. Nation, the Radical Network, and the Italians of the Democratici Egalitari d’Azione participated in a meeting in Barcelona on February 15, 2003, which the MSR convened in opposition to the war in Iraq. However, the MSR did not participate in the “voluntary human shields for Iraq” operation that Nation, Rinascita, the Radical Network, and the Party of French Muslims were undertaking. 68 Although anti-Zionism remained a part of the MSR, Islamophobia was not totally ignored. 69 However, its adoption was difficult, given the pro-Arab tradition in the Spanish radical extreme right; 70 Islamophobia was present mostly in groups with völkisch identities. Still the 2002 summer solstice was celebrated with the French Land and People, a völkisch and Islamophobic movement defending a “Eurosiberia” to specify its racialist discrepancy with the neo-Eurasianist project. In a sign that Islamophobia was not well-established, the MSR initially reacted to the March 11, 2004, Islamist attack in Madrid (191 dead and 1,400 injured) by essentially blaming it on Prime Minister Aznar’s opposition to Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA), the Basque terrorist organization. 71 Nevertheless, in 2009, the MSR made a common European election list with the identity movement Partit per Catalunya (obtaining 0.04 percent of votes). At the same time it signed stillborn agreements with other small groups of various ideological persuasions. Its participation in European elections allowed it to make contact with small groups. The MSR was part of the foundation of the European Alliance of National Movements (AEMN), chaired by the vice president of the FN, Bruno Gollnisch. In addition to the FN and the MSR, the group brought together Jobbik, the Movimento Sociale Italiano-Fiamma Tricolore (Italy), British National Party, National Front (Belgium), and National Demokraterna (Sweden). Various associative statuses then joined, including Svoboda (Ukraine), the Partido Nacional Renovador (Portugal), Bălgarksa Nacional-

136

Nicolas Lebourg

na-Patriotična Partija (Bulgaria), and Vlaams Belang (the Flemish nationalist party in Belgium). Hence, the AEMN has no ideological or programmatic coherence, given that it encompassed movements with totally divergent conceptions on both the nationality issue and on European projects. However, its members recognized their differences in worldview. The MSR was able to participate in the AEMN through social ties with the Briton Nick Griffin, but his electoral weakness and inability to unite the Spanish factions led the parties represented in the European Parliament to no longer want to fund him. According to Ernesto Milá, Bruno Gollnisch was annoyed by the incapacity of his Spanish partners to unite. Early in 2013, Marine Le Pen decided to end all ties with Spanish organizations, as they could not fall in line. 72 Some months later, in order to avoid being accused of cooperating with neoNazis, the FN removed itself from the AEMN. In the European 2014 elections, the MSR won only 0.05 percent of votes (the five-party Spanish extreme-right list shared a total of 0.38 percent of votes). Yet the shadow of the FN still hangs over the MSR. Although the MSR symbol is the flame of the Movimento Sociale Italiano, it was made popular by the FN. Its emblem changes as the French model changes, but remains in the black-red-white color scheme that is dear to the National-Revolutionary and to Falangism. It also gave a place of pride to the red and gold Spanish flag stripped of its coat of arms, which does not fit with the classic symbols of Spanish republicans (the purple, yellow, and red flag), but rather those of the nationalists of 1936. Some flags with chaospheres (spiked globes) were used during Dugin’s 2013 conference. Although the symbol is customary in the International Eurasianist Movement, most observers likely associate it with pop culture, not politics. 73 One of the satellites of the MSR, the Study Circle La Emboscadura (Círculo de Estudios La Emboscadura—CELE), officially organized this conference. The CELE planned the annual “days of dissidence” that brought together the elite of the European radical extreme right, 74 during which anti-Semitic speakers and Holocaust deniers have the spotlight. Dugin took part in it in 2007, the Frenchman Alain Soral was in attendance, and in 2013 it was the German Ernst Zündel. Dugin has not been the only member of the International Eurasianist Movement to be present, as Alexander Kuznetsov represented the organization in 2008. Other satellite structures exist, such as the Workers’ National Union (Unión Sindical de Trabajadores), the Students’ National Union (Unión Sindical de Estudiantes), and Alternativa Joven, for young people who are not students. Infiltration into environmental groups varied, with work in animal rights and anti-speciesism circles and the creation of dedicated structures such as Spanish Patriots Against Animal Torture (Patriotas Españoles Contra la Tortura Animal) and Green Spain (Hispania Verde). Circle Athena (Circulo Atenea) was founded in 2013, inspiring the French Antigones, who are “anti-FEMEN.” Nueva República editions spread the ideological materi-

Arriba Eurasia?

137

al. This led the Barcelona provincial court to sentence Juan Antonio Llopart in 2009 to two-and-a-half years in prison for the diffusion of ideas that support genocide (whereas Ramón Bau, who in 1997 founded a Circle of Indo-European Studies to succeed CEDADE, was sentenced to three years). This judgment was overturned in 2011 by the Supreme Tribunal, which found that while anti-Semitic and Holocaust-denying materials were disseminated, they included no direct appeal to perpetrate massacres. All of these difficulties led the MSR to have a tense congress in 2014. Fifty delegates were supposed to represent the three hundred militants who officially comprise the party. 75 The number seems excessive, twice what was represented by movements such as New Resistance and Radical Unity, despite the smaller population of Spain and the balkanization of its nationalist scene. Tensions were strong enough to cause a confusing split. Llopart and his allies founded a new faction, Soberanía y Libertad, inspired by the Identity Bloc and using as its symbol the Greek lambda, which also represents its youth movement, Generation Identity. CONCLUSION The extreme Spanish right has been in disarray since the end of Francoism. The importation of nationalist-European, and neo-Eurasianist references has not succeeded in resuscitating it. It remains crushed by the power of the Partido Popular, which has recycled old Francoists while adopting essential basics from the liberal-conservative right and maintaining a pro-U.S. foreign policy stance. Worse still, the neo-Eurasianism overhaul attempts labeled the MSR as a neo-Nazi movement in the mainstream media and among most of the right. Alexander Dugin’s presence at various times in Spain thus highlights the particular impossibility of finding individuals with social and political pull. In twenty years of contact, he has passed from circles concerned with the breakdown of neo-Nazism to the hodgepodge of neofascism. Even the high tension that Catalan separatism created among the state’s repressive sectors has not provided any dynamism. In addition, during his 2013 Madrid conference, Dugin mentioned neither these separatist tensions nor the economic crisis that has devastated the country (the unemployment rate among young people reached 53.8 percent in 2014). Instead, his ideas concentrated on the agitation France experienced during the seemingly endless protests against opening marriage to same-sex couples. His discourse seemed to be much more geared toward Paris than Madrid. The absence of a mass electoral party is clearly detrimental to the development of a pro-Eurasianist influence in Spain.

138

Nicolas Lebourg

NOTES 1. José Ortega y Gasset, “La Vocation de la Jeune Europe,” La Jeune Europe (1942), 4–6. 2. Directorate of Military Security, Hiérarchie du mouvement néo-nazi Jeune Europe, May 7, 1963, Archives of the Préfecture de Police of Paris GAJ4. 3. Jean Thiriart, ¡Arriba Europa! Una Europa Unida: a imperio 400 millones de hombres (Barcelona: Mateu, 1965). “Arriba España” was the most famous slogan of the Franco regime, thus Thiriart offers a substitute ideology. 4. La Nation européenne, September 15–October 15, 1966. 5. Le Monde, March 23,1967. 6. Ernesto Milá, “La Nation européenne, el ultimo proyecto de Jean Thiriart,” Revista de Historia del Fascismo, no. 2 (December 2010–January 2011): 152–74. Having known Thiriart, Ernesto Milá is a figure of the new Spanish right. During this period, he was a member (successively) of the PENS, Frente Nacional de la Juventud, and Frente de la Juventud. 7. José Cuadrado Costa, Insuffisance et dépassement du concept marxiste-léniniste de nationalité, Conscience européenne, no. 9, (October 1984). Founded in 1984 in Belgium, the PCN claimed to be the pro-European integration party based on Thiriart’s ideas. 8. Rosario Jabardo and Fernando Reinares, “Démobilisation de l’extrême droite en Espagne,” L’Extrême droite en Europe, Pouvoirs, no. 87 (November 1998): 116. 9. CEDADE, Thule, la Cultura de la Otra Europa (Barcelona: Ediciones Wetlaschauung, 1979), 235–37. 10. Gustavo D. Perednik, “Naïve Spanish Judeophobia,” Jewish Political Studies Review 15 (2003): 87–110. 11. See, for example, Les Peuples blancs survivront-ils? Déclarations du Nouvel Ordre Européen de 1967 à 1985 présentés par G-A. Amaudruz (Montreal: Editions celtiques, 1987). 12. José Rodríguez Jiménez, “Antisemitism and the Extreme Right in Spain (1962–1997),” Analysis of Current Trends in Antisemitism (1999). Accessed January 22, 2015, http://sicsa.huji.ac.il/15spain.html. 13. Christian Bouchet, “Yockey, le précurseur,” La Revue d’histoire du nationalisme-révolutionnaire, no. 1 (December 1998); Michael Whine, Mapping the Extreme Right in Contemporary Europe (Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2012), 319. 14. After having obtained 2.1 percent in the 1979 European elections, Fuerza Nueva slipped to just 0.5 percent in 1982. 15. La Flamme, January, March, and September 1972. 16. Selon Yves Bataille (leader of the French OLP), interview, June 21, 2004. 17. Third Way, TV Rapport d’activités mai 1986 (internal document). Also see two pamphlets published by Third Way: “Pour la France” (1986) and “Pour l’Europe” (1987); Christophe Boutin, “L’Extrême droite française au-delà du nationalisme 1958–1996,” Revue Française d’histoire des idées politiques, no. 3 (1996): 153. 18. This was also the title of Emilie Lecerf’s newspaper after his falling out with Thiriart. Alberto Torresano is a member of Madrid’s Falange and a Francophile who frequents the leadership of the FN. He is also an admirer of Français Duprat, the French Nationalist Revolutionary who was assassinated in 1978 while he was second-in-command of the FN. 19. Collectivo Karl-Otto Paetel, Fascismo Rojo (Valencia, 1998), 95. 20. Moreno Feliu, “La Herencia desgraciada: racismo y heterofobia en Europa,” Estudios Sociológicos 12 (1994): 54. 21. Christian Bouchet, Troisième voie-Année zéro, 1989 (internal document). 22. Christian Bouchet, discussion, August 12, 2002. The former has now joined the FN, the latter is the head of the cabinet of the Le Penist mayor of Béziers. 23. Thus in the Eléments of May 1992, Alain de Benoist seems to use elements from the editorials of the Lutte du peuple, the NR’s organ. 24. TV Circulaire SG-8, September 4, 1991; Nouvelle Résistance SG-9, September 23, 1991 (internal documents). 25. Christian Bouchet, Les Nouveaux nationalistes (Paris: Déterna, 2001), 57. Before the war the Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional Sindicalista were in contact with Otto Strasser.

Arriba Eurasia?

139

26. See, for example, Anton Shekhovtsov and Andreas Umland, “Is Alexander Dugin a Traditionalist? ‘Neo-Eurasianism’ and Perennial Philosophy,” Russian Review 68 (2009): 662–78 and Alexander Dugin, “La Cuarta teoria politica,” Madrid, November 12, 2013. Accessed January 22, 2015, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-N7fnST5t4. 27. Tribuna de Europa, no. 5 (May 1994). 28. Tribuna de Europa, no. 2 (May 1993). 29. L’Europe combattante Note d’orientation no. 3 du secrétariat général de Nouvelle Résistance, no. 2, 1992 (internal document). 30. There was as much space for the New Right as the NR: de Benoist, Battarra, Bouchet, Michel (PCN), Schneider, Steuckers, Terraciano, and Thiriart. There was none for Spain. Michel Schneider’s presence testified that the FEL was not excluded vis-à-vis neo-populist parties, since this part of the FN founded Nationalisme & République (which involved many FEL members) to try to displace Jean-Marie Le Pen in favor of Marie-France Stirbois, the widow of the former Front secretary-general Jean-Pierre Stirbois (Michel Schneider, letter dated March 27, 1990, addressed to several members of the French extreme right, in author’s possession). Launched in 1991, Nationalisme & République promulgated a strongly antiAmerican and “anti-Zionist” line and called for the convergence of the sovereigntist left, environmentalists, and the extreme right. 31. The international stakes of hybridization was intense and multidirectional. When Limonov and Dugin launched the National-Bolshevik Front in Russia, they used this logo of Otto Strasser’s Scharwze Front. The FEL was already using the logo following its adoption by the youth section of the New Resistance. Fabrice Robert led this group (he is now president of the Identity Bloc). Coming from the skinhead musical scene, he borrowed it from the clearly neoNazi musical label European Rebels (founded in 1987 in France). 32. Xavier Casals, La Tentación neofascista en España (Barcelona: Plaza & Janés, 1998), 132–33. 33. Robert Steuckers, email, May 30, 2014. 34. In the review that he led with Yves Bataille, he took up the spatial conceptions of Mackinder and Evola on cyclical time, in order to affirm that Stalinism sought “Eurasian continental unity, occult goals of ‘global revolution at the center of the earth,’ the same great polar goals in the trans-historic pursuit of the Heartland at the end of a ‘final obscure cycle.’” According to him, Eurasia would be built to become a place of dialectic confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union, resulting in “the final assumption of all toward a new united civilization [within] a same community of civilization, of being and destiny.” (De l’Atlantique au Pacifique, February 1976). Thus here is a Nordic racial thinker using the concept of Eurasia, resulting in more closeness to the concepts of Europe Action, which was renamed Septentrion, in identity circles during the late twentieth century. 35. See, for example, Alexandre Dugin, La Grande guerre des continents (Paris: Avatar, 2006). 36. Declaration No. 9253, November 10, 1993. Archives of the Valenciennes sub-prefecture. 37. Nation Europe, February/March 1994 and June/July 1994. 38. Xavier Bougarel, “Travailler sur l’islam dans la Bosnie en guerre,” Cultures et Conflits, no. 47 (2002): 49–80; Jacques Sémelin, Purifier et détruire. Usages politiques des massacres et génocides (Paris: Le Seuil, 2005), 33. 39. Yves Bataille became a resident of Yugoslavia, where his wife was colleague of Radovan Karadzic, the leader of the Bosnian Serbs. See, for example, Yves Bataille, “Chronique d’un embrasement annoncé,” Nation Europe, no. 3 (January/March 1995); Luc Michel, “Ni République islamique ni colonie yankee . . . l’Europe aux Européens,” Nation Europe, no. 4–5 (February/April 1996). 40. Christian Bouchet, letter dated October 7, 1994 (internal document). 41. Pour la Cause du peuple. Manifeste de Nouvelle Résistance (Nantes: Ars Magna, 1997). The text takes its title and some of its ideas from the 1974 German “Nazi-Maoist” manifesto, Nationalrevolutionäre Aufbauorganisation—Sache des Volkes. 42. Renato Curcio, A Visage découvert, Paris: Lieu Commun, 1993, pp. 12–13. 43. Cited in Lutte du Peuple, no. 19 (December 1993/January 1994).

140

Nicolas Lebourg

44. Tribuna de Europa 1 (October/December 1994); Lutte du Peuple, no. 23 (September/ October 1994). 45. Tribuna de Europa 2 (May/June 1995). 46. Lutte du Peuple, no. 28 (September/October 1995). 47. The concept came from German nationalism. Postwar radicals used it to circumvent the antiracist constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany. In this context, the OLP introduced it to France following a vote on new antiracist legislation in 1972. 48. La Voix du Peuple, no. 35 (February/March 1997). This is still the organ of Nouvelle Résistance. 49. Tribuna de Europa 2 (February/March 1996) and (April/May 1996). The project on a European party was already on the agenda during the European meeting in Venice in 1962 (with Mosley, Thiriart, and others). 50. Christian Bouchet, Lettre ouverte aux cadres de Nouvelle Résistance, August 16, 1996 (internal document). 51. “Statuts de l’Association Nouvelle Résistance,” September 2,1996, 3 p., archives of the Raincy sub-prefecture. 52. See, for example, “A propos du Front Européen de Libération et du PCN” and “Communiqué de presse de Nouvelle Résistance—November 10, 1996.” Accessed January 22, 2015, http://fel.nr.free.fr/propos.htm. 53. L’Europe combattante, October 1996 (internal letter); Tribuna de Europa 2 (December 1996). 54. 3e congrès de Nouvelle Résistance Motion présentée par le secrétariat général de l’organisation, 4; L’Europe combattante, November 1996, 1–2 (internal documents). 55. L’Europe combattante, Summer 1997 (internal document). 56. Tribuna de Europa 2 (May/June 1997). 57. Napalm Rock is one of a number of peripheral fanzines of New Resistance conforming to its strategy of aggregation at the margins. Dedicated to metal music, the title is violently pagan and Thelemic. 58. Tribuna de Europa 2 (October/November 1997). 59. La Lettre du Réseau, November/December 1997 and November/December 1998 (internal documents). Meanwhile, the French founded Radical Unity, which the autorilies dissolved in 2002 following an assassination attempt on President Jacques Chirac by a UR militant who claimed that he was an “agent of ZOG.” 60. Tribuna de Europa 2 (October/November 1998). 61. Troy Southgate, “Manifesto of the European Liberation Front,” 1999, reproduced in his Tradition and Revolution (London: Arktos, 2010), 125–32. 62. Martin Durham, “From Imperium To Internet: The National Alliance and the American Extreme Right,” in The “Groupuscular Right”: A Neglected Political Genus, ed. Roger Griffin. Special issue of Patterns of Prejudice 36 (2002): 50–61. Radical Unity also founded a journal called Résistance that had an equivalent in Spain: Resistancia. 63. See Tribuna de Europa 2 (December 1997) and (June 1998). 64. Frauke Büttner, “Right-Wing Extremism in Spain: Between Parliamentary Insignificance, Far-Right Populism, and Racist Violence,” in Is Europe on the “Right” Path? RightWing Extremism and Right-Wing Populism in Europe, ed. Nora Langenbacher and Britta Schellenberg (Berlin: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, 2011), 185. 65. Since the Treaty of the Pyrenees (1659), the part of Catalonia situated north of the Pyrenees has belonged to France. 66. Philippe Vardon, email, May 29, 2014. 67. The site Open Revolt offers texts written (and translated) by Alexander Dugin. 68. Actualité Juive, February13, 2003. 69. SOS Racismo, Informe anual 2007: sobre el racismo en el Estado español (Barcelona: Icaria, 2007), 196; “Los ultras celebran la Hispanidad con actos xenófobos en Barcelona,” El Pais, October 13, 2010. 70. Xavier Casals, El fascismo, entre el legado de Franco y la modernidad de Le Pen (Barcelona: Destino, 1998), 67–70.

Arriba Eurasia?

141

71. Secretaría de Prensa del MSR, “El Movimiento Scial Republicano (MSR) exige medidas excepcionales y responsabilidades políticas tras el genocidio cometido en Madrid ” March 11, 2004. 72. Ernesto Milá, “DOSSIER |La extrema-derecha ante las elecciones europeas. Lectura crítica (i),” Minuto digital, March 24, 2014. Accessed January 22, 2015, http:// www.minutodigital.com/2014/03/21/dossier-la-extrema-derecha-ante-las-elecciones-europeaslectura-critica-i/. After participating in DN, Ernesto Milá began writing profusely. 73. On the chasosphere, see Stéphane François, “Un Occultisme postmoderne: la magie du Chaos,” Fragments sur les temps présents, October 10, 2009. Accessed January 22, 2015, http:/ /tempspresents.com/2009/08/10/stephane-francois-occultisme-postmoderne-magie-du-chaos/. 74. The website of the official French FN newspaper announced these days only once, in 2008, when Christian Bouchet attended them. He supported Marine Le Pen over Bruno Gollnisch to succeed Jean-Marie le Pen in 2011. 75. Xavier Rius Sant, “Mapa incompleto de la extrema derecha (3) MSR, Juan Antonio Llopart,” Xavier Rius Blog, July 29, 2014. Accessed January 22, 2015, http://xavierrius.blogspot.com.es/2012/08/mapa-incompleto-de-la-extrema-derecha-3.html. After his departure, Juan Antonio Llopart said that the MSR had €2,500 for its European elections campaign, which should give an idea of its militant status. See “Juan Antonio Llopart sobre la ruptura con el MSR,” Tribuna de Europa, August 20, 2014, http://www.tribunadeeuropa.com/2014/08/20/ juan-antonio-llopart-sobre-la-ruptura-con-el-msr/.

Part III

Turkey, Hungary, and Greece: Dugin’s New Conquests

Chapter Seven

“Failed Exodus” Dugin’s Networks in Turkey Vügar İmanbeyli

Until the translation of his Osnovy geopolitiki into Turkish in mid-2003, Alexander Dugin was largely unknown in Turkey. 1 Thanks to the rapid media success of his book, the Russian doctrinaire was able to improve his relations with some Turkish politicians. He immediately became famous in anti-American and anti–European Union circles, such as the marginal national-Bolshevik Workers’ Party (İşçi Partisi), and a group of retired high-ranking generals. This success is paradoxical in nature as the book promotes a negative image of Turkey being totally subordinated to U.S. interests and opposed to Russia’s strategy in Eurasia. But Dugin was able to develop a parallel narrative about the Eurasian nature of both Russia and Turkey and their core role in developing an anti-Western and anti-American axis that resonated far beyond readers of the book itself. Nearly a decade later, Dugin’s website, Evrazia.org, contained texts in fifteen languages—and the largest number were in Turkish. This chapter seeks to provide a detailed account of Dugin’s “exodus to Turkey” at the beginning of the 2000s, his first contacts, the reasons for his short-term popularity, his (un)changing ideas, and his legacy in Turkey. Several arguments and sources in the first part of the chapter are based on my dissertation, in which I examined the emergence and evolution of the Eurasianist ideology developed by Russian intellectuals in the twentieth century as well as the usage of “Eurasia” in Turkey after the Cold War. 2 I also very briefly touched on Dugin’s links in the Turkish public and discussions about his book. However, I have expanded that initial research, adding new sources, arguments, and accounts to illustrate Dugin’s networks in Turkey. These include Dugin’s own writings, news from his websites, as well as 145

146

Vügar İmanbeyli

various books, commentary, and news published in Turkey. To date, the academic literature has only a single title related to Dugin’s networks in Turkey. 3 While Dugin burst on the Turkish political scene after his most famous book was published in Turkish in 2003, he failed to persuade mainstream intellectuals to sign onto his projects and was quickly marginalized. Complicating matters, he significantly damaged his popularity by defending members of Ergenekon, a secretive, secular nationalist group rumored to be linked to the military and intelligence services, and which would have fomented social unrest and organized political assassinations with the goal of destabilizing civil government. 4 Having lost his former promoters and fortuitous timing, Dugin’s influence in Turkey will likely further decline in the coming years. Before illustrating Dugin’s networks, I will give a brief account of Eurasian groups in Turkey in order to understand the context that briefly benefitted Dugin. “REFLECTIONS OF EURASIA” IN TURKEY AFTER THE COLD WAR “Eurasia” (Avrasya) was not a common word in Turkey until the end of the Cold War. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, it quickly entered the Turkish lexicon and became widespread in public space. Newspapers, journals, and commentators frequently use the term when discussing regional issues; transport companies, businesses, even Internet cafes use it as a brand name. Turkish governments also used the term extensively in the early 1990s, for example, by establishing in 1993 TRT Avrasya, a state TV channel broadcasting “from the Adriatic to the Chinese wall.” 5 Furthermore, the word was adopted by various political groups and intellectuals. The traditional word Turan, used to describe the Turkic Central Asian region, was progressively replaced with “Eurasia,” which did not imply ethnic unity and was available for more modern—and less nationalist—purposes. At least five distinct groups incorporated “Eurasia” into their thinking: (1) neo-Kemalist ulusalcı (or nationists), 6 (2) National-Bolsheviks, (3) nationalist Turkists, (4) moderate Islamists, and (5) neo-Ottomanists. Usage of “Eurasia” varied from case to case; they did not have similar definitions of it, and the concept did not play a pivotal role in their ideological framework. They could have deleted “Eurasia” from their statements without harming their platforms. Why did these groups embrace the Eurasia concept? First, the Soviet Union suddenly vanished, and the former Soviet territories needed to redefine themselves. Common historical and cultural ties with the peoples of Central Asia and the Caucasus were enough to keep them high on the Turk-

“Failed Exodus”

147

ish agenda. Second, excited by the newly emerged kin states, many economic actors moved to increase their knowledge of—and activities with—these energy-rich new countries and to fill the “new geopolitical vacuum” formed by the disintegration of the USSR. Third, various groups from the leftist camp experienced an intellectual void after the collapse of the Socialist bloc and were searching for new conceptual principles. For all of them, “Eurasia” offered some forms of ideological compensation. Nationists One of the first groups to use “Eurasia” in their publications was the Ankarabased Ulusal (Nation) journal published between 1996 and 1998 by people close to the Democratic Left Party (Demokratik Sol Parti—DSP). Ulusal canonized the Kemalist nation-state model, the anti-imperialist struggle, Socialist principles, and the ideas of national-communist Mirsaid Sultan Galiyev, 7 who in the 1920s proposed the establishment of a confederation of socialist states comprised of Turanic peoples. The leader of DSP, Bülent Ecevit, Ulusal editor Hakan Reyhan, Kaan Öğüt, a writer, Anıl Çeçen, a professor of law at Ankara University, and many Turkist-minded ulusalcı intellectuals contributed to the journal with articles on the Turkic peoples living in the Caucasus and Central Asia. Reyhan, for example, stated that there was no place for imperialist China and Russia in “Eurasian Togetherness” (Avrasya Birlikteliği). His emphasis was on the oppressed (mazlumdaş) and people from the same kinship groups (soydaş). 8 Bülent Ecevit argued that Ankara should have followed “a region-centered foreign policy” and become a regional leader, which would automatically open the doors of the West to Turkey. 9 Öğüt insisted that the secularist Kemalist nation-state model must quickly be implemented by the newly independent countries; otherwise, the rise of Islamist trends would be unavoidable. 10 Çeçen similarly admired the role of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in transferring the developed Western nation-state model to Anatolia and hoped for a similar transfer to Eurasian Turkic countries. 11 The socialist writer Atilla İlhan also falls within this general framework. İlhan, called by some academicians the “father of Turkish Eurasianism,” promoted Sultan Galiyev’s idea of establishing a Turanic federation of socialist states. He also endorsed both Mustafa Kemal’s and Sultan Galiyev’s anti-imperialist struggles. Other components of İlhan’s “Eurasia” were secularism, ulusal socialism, and Turkish-Russian cooperation. According to him, Atatürk applied Eurasianism avant l’heure by establishing Eurasian alliances (the Balkan and Sadabat pacts), 12 prioritizing Turkish-Soviet friendship, and avoiding alliances with Western powers. 13

148

Vügar İmanbeyli

The Workers’ Party The second group adopting the term “Eurasia” was the Workers’ Party (İşçi Partisi) and its leader, Doğu Perinçek. This Leninist-Maoist party has long been a marginal group in Turkish politics. Perinçek, having developed close relations with the Chinese Communist Party, was known for his anti-Russian and anti-Soviet stance before 1991. In the mid-1990s Perinçek intensified the usage of the Eurasia concept in his writings and published a short book, Avrasya Seçeneği (Eurasian Alternative), where he suggested building regional and continental alliances, including with Russia, to oppose U.S. hegemony. He claimed that Eurasia would be a stronghold for new socialist revolutions. At the beginning of the 2000s, his party became a bastion of the ulusalcı front, which objected to Turkey’s possible European Union membership. In this context, Perinçek developed very close ties with many retired generals who also opposed the EU membership. After changing its party program and revising many references to socialism in December 2006, the Workers’ Party adopted ulusalcı (nationist) and neo-Kemalist principles. In this framework, Eurasianism was presented as an international strategy intended to preserve the secular Kemalist nation-state, to complete the Kemalist Revolution launched by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in the 1920s, and, finally, to achieve socialism. Perinçek’s son, Mehmet, presented all of these issues in his own book, Avrasyacılık (Eurasianism), as “a theory and practice of Eurasianism in Turkey.” 14 Generals Tuncer Kılınç, Çetin Doğan, and Şener Eruygur, who would be later convicted of attempting to overthrow the government, contributed speeches to be included in this book. Nationalist Turkists Turkist (Türkçü) intellectuals emphasized the Turkish ethnic identity and believed in the unification of the Turkic world. Many Turkist intellectuals close to the Nationalist Action Party (Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi—MHP) were also interested in using “Eurasia.” Although they preferred other concepts like “Turkic world” (Türk Dünyası) or “Central Asia and the Caucasus” (Orta Asya ve Kafkaslar), “Eurasia” appeared more inclusive and attractive. Namık Kemal Zeybek, a politician and initiator of many projects for the Turkic world, Özcan Yeniçeri, head of the think tank AYSAM (see below), Ümit Özdağ, head of the once-famous Ankara-based think tank ASAM, Arslan Bulut, a columnist, and Ahat Andican, a former minister responsible for projects with the Turkic world, were among the prominent members of this circle. Zeybek, a former minister of culture and chief advisor to the prime minister’s office at the beginning of the 1990s, established the Ahmet Yesevi Strategic Studies Center (AYSAM) 15 and several periodicals that sought to

“Failed Exodus”

149

increase awareness of the Turkic peoples. Their Eurasianist ideas were systematized in several periodicals like Yeni Avrasya, Ayhaber, Aygazete, and Asya-Avrupa between 2000 and 2005. According to Zeybek, a Eurasian Union (Avrasya Birliği) meant in essence the Turkic Union, and around this union several alliances with neighbors would be shaped under the title of Eurasian Partnership (Avrasya Ortaklığı). 16 In this respect, Iran was presented a very important link between Turkey and the Turkic world. But according to them, the final goal was the unification of the Turkic states. 17 Turkist intellectuals claimed that this new strategy in the Turkic world should have been Turkey-centered because only Turkey had both a rich experience and the potential to mobilize and lead the Turkic world. 18 By leading this mission, Turkey would develop special relations with the EU and the United States and would even prevent the emergence of any anti-U.S. alliance in Eurasia. 19 Retired General Suat İlhan, who had also Turkist tendencies, proposed a slightly different definition of Eurasianism. He stated that the Turkish Revolution based on Ataturk’s principles was the foundation of Turkish Eurasianism. Teaching geopolitics in military schools for many years, İlhan suggested creating an international alliance based on cultural (Turkic) and geographical (mainly Asian) integrity; in this sense, institutions such as the Economic Cooperation Organization, which united Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the Central Asia states, should be activated. 20 The Gülen Movement In 1998, the Foundation of Journalists and Writers, which was close to the moderate Islamist Fethullah Gülen community, founded the DA Dialogue Eurasia (Diyalog Avrasya) Platform, with the participation of intellectuals from the former Soviet states. Many famous figures like Chingiz Aytmatov, Olzhas Suleymenov, Mukhtar Shahanov, Rostislav Rybakov, Anar Rzayev, Giuli Alasania, İlber Ortaylı, and Kemal Karpat regularly participated in symposiums organized by the platform to discuss issues related to improving cultural dialogue among Eurasian peoples. The platform’s coordinator, Erkam Tufan Aytav, described their movement’s main principle as glocalism; that is, a combination of globalization and localization. In his words, they turn to the West in terms of human rights, market economy, and freedom of thought; but they believe in the importance of a Eurasian cultural and intellectual cooperation. 21 The platform produced a bilingual quarterly, DA: Diyalog Avrasya, that has been published in both Turkish and Russian since 2000. The journal covers a broad range of topics, from politics to history, literature, culture, and religion. Rather than imposing a single model on the Eurasian countries, it embraces a comparative approach. 22 While some early articles and discussions attempted to formulate Eurasianism, these discussions soon faded. 23

150

Vügar İmanbeyli

Early issues published works by Russian Eurasianists, from the founding father, Petr Savitsky 24 to contemporary scholars such as Boris Erasov, 25 and a historical analysis about classical Eurasianism. 26 Neo-Ottomanist Yarın Group The last group that attributed a special meaning to “Eurasia” was composed of neo-Ottomanists gathered around the monthly Yarın, which was published from 2002 to 2006. Along with leading writers of the journal like Ahmet Özcan, Burhan Metin, A. Altay Ünaltay, a number of other writers from various circles (İhsan Eliaçık, İbrahim Kalın, Mahir Kaynak, Erol Göka) contributed to Yarın. The journal advanced an anti-liberal, anticapitalist, and conservative stance, promoted a “third way” alternative, and called for a rethinking of the Ottoman past in order to build future projects for Turkey. 27 The magazine’s pages were full of admiration toward the Pax Ottomana, the era in which, they claimed, people had lived in peace and prosperity for many centuries. 28 This neo-Ottomanist approach was offered as a solution to contemporary regional conflicts. Ironically, here Eurasianism was used instead of neo-Ottomanism. The journal’s main ideologue, Ahmet Özcan (real name, Seyfettin Mut), declared that neither Europeanism (Avrupacılık) nor nationalism (Ulusalcılık) but Eurasianism (Avrasyacılık) should be Turkey’s sole alternative. But what was his take on Eurasianism? He first identified the widest boundaries of the Ottoman Empire as “Turkey’s Eurasia” and then stated that an “open and consistent Pax Ottomana policy should be followed” in this region. In internal policy, Muslim Turks, as the largest group, would be the nucleus of the identity around which other ethnic groups and religious minorities would be articulated. In foreign policy, the Turks should purse integrative and synchronic relations, particularly with close neighbors as well as the EU and Russia. 29 After four years of regular publication, the journal suspended its activities; most contributors went to work with Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (JDP) government and a few radicalized their views against the Kemalist state. Starting as early as 1991, the above-mentioned groups helped promote the “Eurasia” terminology in Turkey’s public space without having any personal links with Russian neo-Eurasianists. 30 The situation changed with Dugin’s entry into the Turkish intellectual and political scene in the early 2000s. TURKEY’S PERCEPTION OF DUGIN BEFORE 2003 Though Dugin had been a well-known and prolific writer in Russia’s rightwing circles, with links to the Russian military and security services, there were scant references to him in Turkish mass media before the translation of his best-known book, Osnovy geopolitiki, in 2003.

“Failed Exodus”

151

To my knowledge, Dugin’s name was cited for the first time in the Turkish mass media in DA Diyalog Avrasya in 2001, when he gave a brief interview to the Russian editor of the journal, Alexander Poleshchuk. 31 In April 2001 Dugin created his own political movement in Russia, the Eurasian Party, which likely attracted Poleshchuk’s interest. In the interview, Dugin summarized the general principles of neo-Eurasianism and described activities organized by his movement. 32 The interview was balanced and the language was moderate; Dugin emphasized especially the continuity of traditions in Eurasia, the positive role played by Turkic peoples in the formation of the Eurasian civilization, the legacy of Gengis Khan, as well as the common reaction to the challenge of unilateral globalization. There was not any reference—positive or negative—to Turkey or Turkish politics. The interviewer, after wishing success to the Eurasianist movement, stated his hopes that they would meet again in the pages of DA Diyalog Avrasya. However, this would be Dugin’s first and only interview in this journal. 33 The second reference to Dugin came in a short article written by Aydın İbrahimov, an Azeri professor of geography working at Turkey’s Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University at the beginning of 2002. The article, entitled “Russian Geopolitics: Realities and Developments,” summed up the collapse of the USSR and how Russian geopolitical thinking responded to this event by developing the Eurasianist concept. İbrahimov classified Dugin as a representative of extreme-right ideas in Russia and defined anti-Americanism as the core of his thinking. The author seemed well aware of Russian sources and cited Osnovy geopolitiki. 34 Another long and detailed account of Dugin and his ideas came at the end of 2002. Retired General Yılmaz Tezkan and freelance researcher M. Murat Taşar 35 devoted a special chapter to Dugin and Eurasianism in their book on the history of geopolitics. 36 The authors probably had only recently become aware of Dugin because a year before Tezkan had edited a book devoted to Russian politics that did not mention Dugin. 37 This may indicate that Dugin’s 2001–2002 Internet PR campaign via various websites in different languages proved effective. Tezkan and Taşar’s book relied mostly on web sources, especially texts in English and German. They outlined Dugin’s general thinking, his proposals in foreign and domestic policy, and his call for an Eurasianist alliance system. They also conveyed the principles of his newly established Eurasian Party. The authors approached Dugin’s views without any criticism and even claimed that his version of neo-Eurasianism was the most convenient alternative to meet the expectations of both the Russian elite and the masses. Strikingly, the authors accurately noted the turning points in Dugin’s political life and his relations with the ruling elites in Russia. At the end of the chapter, a summary of the Eurasian Movement’s Manifesto was translated from Dugin’s website, Arktogeia. Furthermore, in the extensive footnotes, the authors introduced Dugin’s two works, Konspirologiia (Con-

152

Vügar İmanbeyli

spirology) and Osnovy geopolitiki 38 as well as his relations with the European extreme-right politicians. Lastly, throughout the chapter there was no mention of Turkey, and the authors did not question Dugin’s attitude toward Ankara. In January 2003, Dugin’s name was cited several times during a workshop 39 on Russian-Turkish relations organized by the Center for Eurasian Strategic Studies (ASAM) 40 in Ankara. In the workshop, Alexander Kadirbayev, from the Russian Oriental Studies Institute, gave a long speech about the history of Turkish-Russian relations and stressed the Eurasianist roots linking the two countries. Defining Eurasianism as an ongoing dialogue between Slavic and Turkic peoples, Kadirbayev identified several versions of neo-Eurasianism led by such figures as Dugin, Eduard Bagramov,and Alexander Panarin, as well as some Turkic-Muslim intellectuals. 41 According to him, Dugin’s model was based on radical anti-Americanism and traditional Russian missionary ideals. Although Dugin was not a central issue in this workshop, it seems from the comments and questions that Turkish participants, not well-informed about Eurasianism, were pleased with information provided by Russian contributors. Meanwhile, in the middle of 2002 Dugin received a request from a Turkish publishing house about translating his Osnovy geopolitiki into Turkish. After this request, Dugin became more interested in Turkey’s politics. He intensified his activities toward Turkey on his party website, with “An Appeal Letter of the Evraziia Party to the Turkish Eurasianists” published in September. 42 The proclamation began by addressing ethnic groups and political factions in Turkey: “Turks, Kurds, Laz people, Circassians, Turkmens, Arabs, Greeks! Right and Left Factions! Anarchists, nationalists, and guardians of Islamic traditions!” 43 The appeal stressed, first of all, threats posed by Western globalization and a new world order that were being shaped by the United States. It called for a united effort to think how to resist these processes by emphasizing similarities between Russia and Turkey; Turkey’s imperial past; the loss of Islamic traditions due to Westernist modernization; erosion of religious, ethical, and family values in the world; and gradually advancing the hegemony of the “golden billion”—people who control the wealth and resources of the planet. Using an extremely anti-Westernist attitude, the text proposed adopting Eurasianism as a main counter-ideology and then establishing a Eurasian continental strategic union. The first members of this union would be China, India, Iran, Russia, and Turkey. At the end of the proclamation several arguments were listed to justify the benefits of such membership. This part was composed of messages to Turkish Euroskeptics, neo-Ottomanists, Turkists, and business elites. It warned Turkey that because the country does not have a strong cultural connection with NATO and Europe, these organizations would abandon it in difficult times. Also, by turning from Europe to Asia,

“Failed Exodus”

153

Turkey would return to “true Turkishness,” which would facilitate the rapprochement with the Turkic peoples as well as with neighboring countries. Acceptance of Eurasianism would establish domestic peace in Turkish society and erase negative attitudes toward the Ottoman imperial past in which all cultures, religions, and nations lived in harmony. This letter was published in Yarın in April 2003, 44 and Yılmaz Tezkan later qualified it as “very touching and addressed to hearts rather than minds.” 45 The letter’s last sentence might be very appealing to many Turks: “Eurasianism is a return to the truly free, prosperous, and multipolar world. And Turkey will be the most beautiful musk rose in this world.” 46 As it is seen, the letter was full of traditionalist accents and carefully worded so that the neo-Ottomanists could not remain indifferent to Dugin. There was not a message targeting secular, nationist (ulusalcı), and neo-Kemalists who would later become Dugin’s close allies in Turkey. It seems that after Taşar and Tezkan published their chapter on Dugin at the end of 2002, Yarın looked for opportunities to contact the leader of the Eurasian Party. 47 The notion of Turkish-Russian cooperation based on a common Eurasian heartland was indeed one of the main subjects covered by the journal. 48 In May 2003, just after the U.S. military campaign against Iraq began, Yarın conducted an online interview with Dugin. He expressed his pleasure at the Turkish parliament’s decision not to permit the United States to launch a military campaign against Iraq from Turkish soil and his belief that Ankara might become an important ally for all Eurasian countries that would struggle against the new world order. 49 In addition to the appeal letter, Evgenii Bakhrevskii analyzed the JDP’s victory in Turkey’s November 2002 parliamentary elections for the Evrazia.org website. 50 His analysis was the site’s second piece related to Turkey. In the meantime, Dugin completed the foreword for the Turkish edition of Osnovy geopolitiki in January 2003, and shortly after a large excerpt from the foreword appeared in the Russian army newspaper, Krasnaya zvezda. 51 Meanwhile, the former Russian ambassador to Ankara, Albert Chernyshev, joined the Eurasian Party and advised Dugin on how to promote Turkish-Russian cooperation. 52 They called on the Turkish ambassador to Moscow, Kurtuluş Taşkent. 53 During the visit, Dugin stated that his movement’s radical anti-Turkish attitude had evolved to a more balanced and positive tone. He wrote an essay for Izvestiya where he argued that the Turkish decision to not allow a U.S. attack against Saddam Hussein to be launched from Turkey’s territory revealed the new Eurasianist tendencies of the Turkish elites. 54 According to Dugin, being the ideal point of intersection for traditionalist Islamists and secular Kemalists, Eurasianism would change Turkey’s conduct toward Russia. Thus, he became more interested in issues related to Turkey and more curious about establishing contacts with Turkish groups that had positively approached Eurasia and Russia.

154

Vügar İmanbeyli

As a result, Turkish-language texts began to be added to Evrazia.org in the spring of 2003. 55 Though Dugin was not yet a widely known figure in Turkey—he had contacts only with two journals: DA Avrasya and Yarın—the first impressions of him were generally positive. In his first messages Dugin emphasized traditionalist values, unilateral globalization, and U.S. hegemony, issues with which the majority of the Turkish public could relate, but he did not make any specific references to Turkey. A few people, including neo-Ottomanists, moderate Islamists, nationalist-Turkists, and neo-Kemalists, previously not aware of his works, began to read more about him. Osnovy geopolitiki Appears in Turkish Dugin’s seminal work in geopolitics, Ovnovy geopolitiki, was published in Turkish in July 2003 under the title Russian Geopolitics: The Eurasianist Approach and catalyzed his introduction to Turkey. 56 Many years later Dugin made clear that the translation came as a surprise to him. 57 The more surprising thing was that in a short time the book topped the reading lists in the Turkish military academies. Through this book, Dugin became a popular public figure and aroused interest among some political groups. It has been reprinted by Küre Yayınları, one of the most prestigious publishing houses of Turkey, seven times between 2003 and 2010. The Turkish translation was made from the 1999 version of Osnovy geopolitiki and included only the most essential parts needed to convey Dugin’s main geopolitical ideas. In addition, the author wrote a special foreword that later was widely disseminated across the Internet by many groups. 58 The foreword was well constructed for Turkish readers. At the beginning, Dugin introduced his definition of geopolitics, that is, the duality of the land- and maritime-power models; he also stressed the benefits of geopolitical methods for understanding our world. Next, he described Turkey’s geopolitical past and classified chronologically three layers that form the basis of Turkish geopolitics: Eurasianist (the most basic level), Ottomanist (imperial), and national (or post-imperial). The Eurasianist layer was based on the energy of nomadic Turks living in landlocked regions. Ottoman geopolitics was comprised of the sea and land principles that were bound together around the Middle East and the Mediterranean basin over many centuries. The national stratum represented the transformation from imperial meta-geopolitics to the smaller (pragmatic) nation-state geopolitics. Dugin claimed that this small geopolitics combined with a secular military-democratic regime could not create the basis for any future great geopolitics for Turkey. Reminding readers of the threats posed by unilateral globalization and calling on them to understand world politics globally, he advised readers to develop a new

“Failed Exodus”

155

multipolar project, open a new page in Russian-Turkish relations, and leave old hostilities behind. 59 These geopolitical analyses and friendship messages seemed quite attractive to many Turks. What’s more, the author’s close relations with the Russian ruling elite (it was pointed out in the short biography section that Dugin had been advisor for the Russian State Duma) made the book indispensable for Turks wanting to know how Russians perceived the contemporary world and Turkey, as well as what were their solutions to the global and regional challenges. This foreword might mislead Turkish readers, however. Indeed, contrary to its positive messages and cautious mode, Turkey’s image was extremely negative in the primary part of the book, and Turkey was defined as “Russia’s most dangerous neighbor in the South.” There were no positive words regarding Turkey and its continental or imperial past anywhere in the text. 60 For example, Dugin defined Turkey’s past as follows: As a state, Turkey was not a continuation of the Ottoman Empire but its parody. Instead of the multi-centered and multi-national imperial Islamic construction, Kemal Atatürk established a secular, atheist, profane, and nationalist version of the French nation-state. Turkey is the first state of the East that radically broke off its spiritual, religious, and geopolitical traditions. 61

The following passage summarized Turkey’s position in the 1990s in the light of the Eurasianist projects: Today as a member of NATO, Turkey is really seen as an outpost of Atlanticism and mondialism in the East and a cordon-sanitaire between Asia-East and the Arabic world. The geopolitical model proposed by Turkey is to be integrated into the Western world and atheist-mondialist civilization. . . . Turkey’s preference is to serve to the Atlanticist super power and accept the model of mondialist global Great Region which is controlled by the “world government.” 62

There might be some explanations for Dugin’s hostile words for Turkey. First, they were written after the collapse of the Soviet Union, a time characterized by Russia’s geopolitical retreat at the global and regional levels, the enlargement of the EU and NATO toward Eastern Europe, uprisings in the North Caucasus, and internal turmoil in Moscow. This context inflamed perceptions that the West was trying to contain Russia, which would become increasingly isolated and finally disintegrated. To many Russians, Turkey, as a NATO member trying to improve its relations with the “near abroad” countries and sympathetic toward the Turkic-Muslim peoples and especially the Islamic insurgency in North-Caucasus, was considered one of the main threats to Russia’s territorial integrity. It was assumed that Turkey, with its long traditional and civilizational relations with the region, had more legiti-

156

Vügar İmanbeyli

macy than any other country to mobilize Turkic-Muslim societies and to lead them. Second, the historical formation of Russia around the Moscow Principality and its struggle with the Golden Horde and, later, with the Ottoman Empire contributed to anchor hostile mirror images on both sides. 63 Dugin’s anti-Turkish stance raised many questions in Turkey and curbed his potential influence. The first book reviews appeared in Yarın in October 2003, one month after the book became available in stores. Davut Başyiğit, in a short review, praised Dugin as an advisor to the Russian parliament and an intellectual politician. 64 Without referring to the book, he quoted statements from Dugin’s interview given to Yarın four months before. At the end, he characterized the book as a quite satisfying source not only for specialists, but for all readers. Clearly, the review had been written without Başyiğit reading the book. One month later, Yarın’s attitude toward Dugin completely reversed. One of the journal’s key ideologists, Ahmet Özcan, published an open letter addressed to “Mr. Dugin.” 65 In the letter, he denounced Dugin’s approach to building a Eurasian Empire, saying that he was no different from the Atlanticists who had tried to foment unrest, rebellion, and civil war and to divide countries that were not convenient or obedient to their projects. “What about the demands of peoples for freedom, justice, and prosperity?” he asked. According to Özcan, Dugin’s Eurasianist project carried quite fascist and despotic characteristics. He also stressed that there was a direct relationship between Dugin’s perception of Turks/Ottomans and traditional Russian aim of controlling Istanbul, the Straits, and the Black Sea region. Yarın apparently decided to break all relations with Dugin at this point. In subsequent issues the journal distanced itself from Dugin, 66 and one of writers described his mentality as “the mirror image of Americanism.” 67 Soon the journal became very suspicious about Russian policies, abandoning its previous calls for Turkish-Russian cooperation. 68 Meanwhile, Dugin’s geopolitical proposals disappointed members of the Dialogue Eurasia Platform. Its executive chairman, Erkam Tufan Aytav, declared that the group had no relationship with Dugin and that the name of their platform should not be confused with Dugin’s movement. 69 The daily Zaman and weekly Aksiyon, close associates of the platform, went further and zeroed in on Dugin’s imperial projects toward the Caucasus and Central Asia and his unconditional support for Iran, suggesting that he was keeping Turkey outside the region to be used as a “scapegoat” in the Eurasianist projects. 70 They could not understand how the ulusalcı groups, which claimed to be nationalists, could have close relations with someone supporting both Russia’s imperial project and Iran’s increased influence in Central Asia and the Caucasus. Dugin’s book also divided the nationalists. The largest group immediately realized that they had come face-to-face with a Russian nationalist who imagined a “grand Russia” refusing the independence of Turkic minorities. 71 But

“Failed Exodus”

157

a minority group, led by Namık Kemal Zeybek, at the outset gave a chance to Dugin by translating and publishing another of his books, Nursultan Nazarbaev’s Eurasian Mission. 72 Published by the Gumilev Eurasian University Press in 2004, the book mainly praised Kazakhstan’s president and presented Dugin’s Eurasianist project. But this effort did not produce any results because it was poorly translated and released too late to repair Dugin’s image. After a while Özcan Yeniçeri, the chairman of AYSAM who wrote the foreword to this second book, criticized Dugin’s strategic plans directed against Turkish interests. 73 Other book reviews also carried negative attitudes. 74 One of the figures who most benefitted from the publication of Osnovy geopolitiki was a retired general, Suat İlhan, who had taught geopolitics for many years in the military academies. İlhan even revised the name and most of the content of his own book, Türkiye Jeopolitiği (Turkey’s Geopolitics), which was originally written in 1995 for use by students in the National Security Academy, to follow Dugin’s theories. The second edition, published in 2005, was titled Türklerin Jeopolitiği ve Avrasyacılık (Geopolitics of Turks and Eurasianism), 75 and İlhan presented different arguments than the first edition and frequently quoted Dugin. İlhan later would be elected chair of the Turkish branch of Dugin’s International Eurasianist Movement (Mezhdunarodnoe evraziiskoe dvizhenie—MED). When Dugin was questioned about his “Atlanticist Turkey” theory, he declared that his approach was old-fashioned and that he had changed radically his views regarding the role of Turkey in Eurasia. He subsequently wrote several articles and a third book expanding on his new perspective. 76 However, his about-face could not rehabilitate his image in Turkey. While Osnovy geopolitiki paved the way for more discussions about Eurasianism in Turkey, Dugin’s visits to the country and his efforts to find new allies there only generated more controversies. DUGIN VISITS TURKEY By late 2003, Dugin was in trouble in Moscow because of his failed attempts to make an alliance with Sergei Glazyev’s Rodina bloc on the eve of parliamentary elections. Shunted to the fringes of daily politics after this failure, Dugin and his closest advisors called for a congress to establish a new organization, the International Eurasianist Movement. To give it an international character, they needed more contacts from abroad. Until that date, Dugin had no close support in Turkey. During the March 2002 press conference where Dugin had announced that he was transforming his movement Evraziia into a political party, he cited many allied Eurasian groups abroad, but none from Turkey. 77 No one from Turkey participated in the first congress of the Eur-

158

Vügar İmanbeyli

asian Party held on May 30, 2002. Dugin approached Yarın, which had published his appeal letter some months before, but the editorial board sent only a congratulatory message. 78 Dugin was more successful with the Turkish Workers’ Party, which sent a delegation to visit Moscow in October 2003. The delegation was led by party official Daşar Karadağ and Doğu Perinçek’s son, Mehmet Perinçek, who had been an exchange student in Nizhny Novgorod at the end of the 1990s, a visiting researcher at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations in 2005–2006, worked in the Russian archives in 2010–2011 on topics related to Turkish-Soviet relations in the 1920s, and had several opportunities to meet Dugin. One of the oldest Leninist organizations in Turkey, the Workers’ Party already had contacts with the Russian Communist Party (KPRF), but not with Dugin until this first meeting. According to both groups’ official statements, both sides found common ground on almost all subjects. 79 In November 2003, another delegation of the Workers’ Party, including Mehmet Perinçek and Özcan Büze, both members of the party’s Central Committee, participated in the founding congress of the International Eurasianist Movement. The second speaker after Dugin himself was Mehmet Perinçek, who read a message from his father. Doğu Perinçek was elected in absentia to the Higher Council of the Movement, a post he has held up to the present. After these two initial meetings, Dugin cultivated his new contacts by making personal visits or sending envoys to Turkey. He himself visited Turkey in 2003 and 2004, the second time he also went to the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC). He also sent his envoys, retired ambassador Chernyshev, and the former leader of the Eurasian Union of Youth (Evraziiskii soyuz molodezhi—ESM), Pavel Zarifullin, at different times. All visits to Turkey were organized by Doğu Perinçek and his team, especially his son Mehmet. Dugin’s own visits to Turkey coincided with the rising effect of anti-EU, anti-U.S. waves caused by Ankara’s prolonged negotiations for EU candidate membership status and the U.S. intervention in Iraq. These feelings, as well as JDP’s recent victory, led to the consolidation of new alliances between groups ranging from the far left to the extreme right and the state bureaucracy. Relatively marginal publications like Aydınlık, Cumhuriyet, Yeni Çağ, and a number of recently launched websites gave full support to this new nationist (ulusalcı) alliance. The ulusalcı alliance was openly supported by many members of the Turkish military, including General Kılınç, then secretary-general of the National Security Council, who opposed EU membership, arguing that Turkey should seek an alliance with Russia, Iran, and China instead. It was obvious that EU membership would expand the role of civilians in politics and end the military tutelage that had long characterized Turkish politics. Dugin’s arrival also coincided with the referendum on the unification of Cyprus, based on a plan proposed by UN Secretary-General

“Failed Exodus”

159

Kofi Annan. While the Turkish government and a majority of Turks on the island supported unification, ulusalcı groups in Turkey opposed both unification and the referendum. They intensified their political activities near the end of 2003. 80 Dugin’s first visit to Istanbul, December 9–12, 2003, produced very “fruitful” results according to official statements. 81 Dugin consulted with Workers’ Party officials and met with prominent members of the ulusalcı coalition, such as the rector of Istanbul University, Kemal Alemdaroğlu, and retired generals Çetin Doğan 82 and Veli Küçük. 83 He was accompanied by two former ambassadors, Chernyshev and Anatolii Zaitsev, 84 giving the visit a veneer of legitimacy. 85 Workers’ Party media, including the weekly Aydınlık and TV channel Ulusal Kanal, gave wide coverage to the visit. Reports from the meetings reveal that the two sides widely differed, even on fundamental issues. 86 Dugin stressed that Eurasianism was a political philosophy of the postmodern era that was based not on class but on geopolitics, while Doğu Perinçek insisted that it was a class strategy to reach socialism. While Dugin said that they should have a positive attitude toward religion, Perinçek did not mention this issue, which is contentious for Turkish secular socialist thought. Perinçek considered that the era of nation-states was ongoing, but Dugin thought the time of empires had returned. Furthermore, while Chernyshev thought it was dangerous to create states for each ethnic group in the world and warned that new, small states would fall under U.S. control, Perinçek opposed the unification of Cyprus on the grounds that it would serve the interests of U.S. imperialism. What brought a traditionalist like Dugin and secular, positivist, Leninistnationalist like Perinçek to collaborate? Perinçek’s statement in the consultations answers this question: “What unites us is the struggle against the U.S.led unipolar world order and neoliberal ideology.” 87 But there were other factors as well. They needed each other because Dugin had no other real contacts in Turkey, while Perinçek was proud of having contacts with someone he thought had the Kremlin’s ear. During one conversation, Perinçek proposed taking his guests to Northern Cyprus, but Zaitsev demanded a time-out to discuss this proposal and ultimately rejected it. The experienced diplomat argued that Moscow had not authorized such a side trip and that it would constitute interference in an internal issue. Nevertheless, Dugin kept a foot in both camps. At the press conference, he declared that the Moscow-Ankara axis was one of the main axes in Eurasianist thinking; thus Turkey was more important than Greece to Russia. 88 Moreover, while the accompanying ambassadors soberly intoned the principle of preserving territorial integrity, Dugin declared that according to Eurasianism, the world should recognize the right of Northern Cyprus to self-determination. 89

160

Vügar İmanbeyli

On the last day of their visits, Dugin and his delegation participated in a conference organized by the rector of Istanbul University, Kemal Alemdaroğlu, discussing the Cyprus problem. Chernyshev made an “interesting proposal” that Ankara should not wait for EU membership but instead join Moscow in building a Eurasian Union. 90 During the conference Dugin had a chance to introduce himself to the leading ulusalcı figures like General Küçük and businessman Kemal Özden, chairman of USİAD (Ulusal Sanayici ve İşadamları Derneği), the umbrella organization of pro-Workers’ Party business circles. That evening Alemdaroğlu organized a banquet in honor of the Russian delegation where Dugin received an official invitation to visit Northern Cyprus. The delegation also met with Akkan Süver, the president of Marmara Grubu Vakfı, the foundation that had organized annual Eurasian Economic Summits since 1997. 91 This first visit was thus successful in the sense that Dugin quickly became involved with the leaders of Turkey’s anti-EU/anti-U.S. front, especially military leaders. Speaking with Evrazia.org upon their return, Zaitsev and Dugin indicated that they had sensed the increasing internal tension between the military and civilian political factions in Turkey and become acquainted with leaders of far-left and neo-Kemalist groups calling on the army to fulfill its “mission” by interfering in civilian politics. 92 After the visit, the prominent Turkish writer Attila İlhan mentioned Dugin several times in his column at the daily Cumhuriyet and on TV programs broadcast by the state channel TRT 2. 93 The daily Zaman and weekly Aksiyon several times questioned Dugin’s theses on Turkey. The planned visit to Northern Cyprus in February 2004 collapsed when allies of the TRNC President, Rauf Denktaş, lost the December 2003 parliamentary elections. After several months Dugin had to be content with sending Denktaş a congratulation message on the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of the Cyprus Peace Operation. 94 However, Russia vetoed a UN Security Council resolution that aimed at giving a strong message to the prounification forces in Northern Cyprus before the April 24 referendum, citing technical reasons. Workers’ Party media outlets presented this veto as a victory of nationalist-Kemalist forces and claimed that Dugin had obviously relayed their concerns to the Kremlin. Mehmet Perinçek himself wrote that the veto was the result of intensive work by the Workers’ Party and the International Eurasianist Movement in Putin’s direction. 95 In reality, Russia fulfilled the demand of its old ally, the Greek Cypriot Administration, which opposed the Annan Plan for unification. 96 Later, Dugin continued to send indirect messages to the Turkish authorities. In April 2004, for instance, he took part in a conference devoted to the Turkish-Russian relations at the newly established Center for Turkish-Russian Studies (RUTAM) in Moscow and declared that Turkey and Russia could understand each other via Eurasianism. 97 RUTAM, directed by Cher-

“Failed Exodus”

161

nyshev, never lived up to its stated aim of developing intellectual links between the two countries. Dugin’s second visit to Turkey was planned to coincide with Putin’s first official visit to Ankara in September 2004, but the Russian president postponed his visit due to the hostage crisis in Beslan, North Ossetia. However, Dugin dispatched Chernyshev to take part in a simultaneous conference organized by the same anti-EU circles at Istanbul University. 98 During the conference, titled “Relations among Turkey, Russia, China, and Iran,” General Kılınç gave a speech where he repeated his concerns about U.S. expansion in the world and called for a Eurasian alliance among these four countries. A few days later, the speech appeared on Evrazia.org, 99 and within a month Krasnaya Zvezda published an editorial that praised Kılınç’s views. 100 It is not hard to assume that the content of the speech was translated and sent to the newspaper via the Chernyshev-Dugin channel. 101 Both Dugin and Putin rescheduled their trips for December 2004. During his nine-day visit, December 3–12, Dugin was invited to speak at the “Eurasian Symposium,” organized mainly by the Workers’ Party, a few days before the EU would give its final decision on whether to open membership negotiations with Turkey. Anti-EU circles, led by the ulusalcı Workers’ Party, neo-Kemalists, and representatives of military bureaucracy, wanted to send a strong negative message to Brussels. The conference was held at Gazi University, considered the stronghold of Turkish nationalists, under the auspices of the former Turkish president Süleyman Demirel. Speakers included Demirel, TRNC President Denktaş, Doğu Perinçek of the Workers’ Party, and retired generals Tuncer Kılınç and Şener Eruygur, the former commander of the Gendarmerie. By stressing commonalities between Russia and Turkey, Dugin called for leaving historical conflicts behind and building Greater Eurasia. During the symposium, a group of students from Ülkü Ocakları, a nationalist-Turkist youth organization, protested against Perinçek and his Workers’ Party and Dugin, which led to clashes in which several people were wounded. 102 This brought the symposium to the agenda of the national mass media. Meanwhile, Devlet Bahçeli, leader of the Nationalist Action Party (Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi—MHP), criticized Perinçek and Dugin, denouncing their Eurasianism (Avrasyacılık) as Avrusyacılık (Eu-Russianism), as Russian hegemony in Eurasia. On December 5, the Turkish Committee of the International Eurasianist Movement met to elect its first members: retired general Suat İlhan, the deputy chair of the Workers’ Party, retired general Yaşar Müjdeci; professor Sencer İmer, deputy chair of the Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi (CHP) 103 faction in parliament; and Ali Topuz, an MP from the same party. Dugin participated in this meeting, supporting Müjdeci’s suggestion that Turkey should leave NATO if the U.S. continued its expansionist policy in the Middle East.

162

Vügar İmanbeyli

Members decided to expand the committee to include not only politicians, the military, and trade unions, but also the artisans and academics. 104 The next day Dugin and Perinçek gave a joint press conference. Dugin expressed his movement’s support for Putin’s efforts to strengthen Russia. He also stated that his new book, Moskova-Ankara Ekseni (Moscow-Ankara Axis), would be published in the coming days. 105 He promised that his new book would confirm that he had changed some of his earlier thinking regarding Turkey’s Atlanticist orientation. Then Dugin had an audience with General Kılınç, where both shared geopolitical concerns about increasing U.S. hegemony. Afterward Dugin appeared on a TV program at Sky Türk and attended a reception given by another TV channel, Ulusal Kanal. At the reception Vural Savaş, a pro-Kemalist former prosecutor-general, thanked Dugin for his contributions to their understanding of Eurasia. Dugin’s Northern Cyprus program on December 7–9 was also intensive. He met high-ranking officials, including President Denktaş and Prime Minister Mehmet Ali Talat. While Turkish Cypriot leaders described feeling isolated from the world, Dugin mentioned a possible forthcoming change in Russian foreign policy. The next day, he gave presentations at the Near East University and Girne American University, where the rectors and student groups crowded in to listen to his lectures. According to Evrazia.org, the audience was so curious and enthusiastic toward Dugin’s Eurasianist ideas that members of the audience decided to create a local branch of the International Eurasianist Movement. Returning to Istanbul on December 10, Dugin held another press conference where he replied to Devlet Bahçeli’s accusations, saying that Bahçeli was probably naive, otherwise he would not be propagating national ideals but rather Atlantiscism instead. The visit ended on December 11 with the symposium “Eurasian Economic Partnership” at Istanbul University and a crowded farewell party. Evrazia.org called the visit epochal. Dugin indeed gained a great deal of knowledge about Turkey and its domestic politics. He also further improved his relations with Doğu Perinçek, now labeled an “old and reliable friend of Russian Eurasianists.” But what else did Dugin learn? He swiftly made radical adjustments to his views on Turkey’s past, especially the republican period. After denouncing Turkey for being a secular nation-state and outpost of the United States and NATO in Osnovy geopolitiki, Dugin was now celebrating Kemalist Turkey. In an article published in Trud following his first visit, he defined Turkey as a country that had experienced a strong national consciousness since Mustafa Kemal Atatürk attempted to play an independent role in the region. Atatürk had established “Young Turkey” on the basis of a harsh anti-Anglo-Saxon (Atlanticist) project. Therefore, according to Dugin, even during periods of rapprochement with Washington, Ankara perceived itself not as a colony of the United States, but its equal partner. 106

“Failed Exodus”

163

Meanwhile, Evrazia.org added links to three Turkish websites: the journal Yarın, AYSAM, and the Workers’ Party. But only the last connection actually worked. Dugin’s contacts with Doğu Perinçek of the Workers’ Party and retired generals once again made his name popular in Turkey when the case of the Ergenekon criminal organization broke out in 2007. THE ERGENEKON CASE AND DUGIN Ergenekon was the code name for the underground group that evolved from the Special Operations Directory (Özel Harp Dairesi) established by NATO to prepare for a guerrilla war against a possible Soviet invasion. 107 Although the group can be traced to the 1950s, the Turkish people only learned of its existence in 1996 when a wrecked car was discovered near the town of Susurluk. Inside were a member of parliament, a police chief, and a mafia boss, suggesting some sort of collaboration among them. By the next year, some journalists openly referred to Ergenekon, and it was mentioned in official reports. This organization allegedly intensified its activities after the JDP came to power in 2002 because the party was determined to implement many EU reforms and to eradicate such clandestine structures. Ergenekon members supposedly penetrated the state’s centers of power and had a very complex network comprised of representatives from the top ranks of the military and police, the judiciary, media, and politicians. In the second half of the 2000s, a series of raids snared many retired generals, including Veli Küçük, Tuncer Kılınç, Şener Eruygur, and Çetin Doğan, as well as a number of active military officers, chiefs of police, rectors, academicians and journalists, senior officials of the Workers’ Party (including both Perinçeks), and many members of ulusalcı associations. 108 The whole process lasted six years, and in August 2013 the 13th High Criminal Court of Istanbul rendered its verdict. Most of the suspects were convicted of being members of Ergenekon and illegal activities aimed at overthrowing the government. However, in March 2014 many of them were released on bail. At the time of the writing of this chapter, their files are still at the Supreme Court pending a retrial. Was there any link between the Ergenekon network and the leader of the Russian Eurasianist Movement? Dugin met with many of the implicated people and had private talks with them during his visits to Turkey. He had maintained close relations with the leading cadres of the Workers’ Party, especially with Doğu Perinçek, who was reportedly part of the inner circle of the Ergenekon, and his son, Mehmet. Were there any other relations? Did Dugin encourage various members of Ergenekon with assurances of Russian backing for a coup d’etat? We do not have open sources that would corroborate this claim. Because Turkish authorities apparently did not want to inves-

164

Vügar İmanbeyli

tigate any foreign links of Ergenekon, we lack solid evidence. It is possible that Ergenekon members sent or planned to transmit their messages via Perinçek through Dugin to the Russian establishment. Also, it can be assumed that if Dugin had not openly disclosed his sympathy toward the Ergenekon suspects, then his name would not have been quoted in Turkish mass media. Curiously, when the arrests of Ergenekon members began, Dugin’s attitude toward the Turkish government radically changed. Between 2003 and 2007 he offered no criticism against the JDP government. Even during the conference devoted to Turkish-Russian-Azeri relations in Moscow at the end of 2007, Dugin declared, “Russia could not adequately evaluate the changes in Turkish society; in 1990s Turkey was considered as an outpost of Atlanticism, but now it was also an outpost of independent Eurasian politics.” 109 After 2007, Dugin’s negative attitude toward the JDP government ran against the Turkish-Russian rapprochement, which included strategic dialogue with intensive, high-level meetings, economic partnership, reciprocal investments, nonvisa regime, and more. Dugin’s first statement on the Ergenekon issue came on March 22, 2008, just one day after Doğu Perinçek, Kemal Alemdaroğlu, Serhan Bolluk (editor of Aydınlık weekly), and İlhan Selçuk (head writer of Cumhuriyet newspaper) were imprisoned. 110 In his comment, “Against America? Go to the Prison,” Dugin described Doğu Perinçek as an “antiglobalist and defender of rapprochement with Russia and severance of relations with the United States,” and general Küçük as “an initiator of the turn to Russia in the military leadership.” 111 He presented this event as a geopolitical struggle between the pro-Russian and pro-NATO forces in Turkey. Hence, according to him, Moscow had to respond to this challenge directed against Russian interests. In the comment there was also falsified news; Dugin indicated, for instance, that on March 22 the “weekly Aydınlık and daily Cumhuriyet both published blank pages because the editorial boards were arrested, and Ulusal Kanal was closed.” In reality, these media organs never stopped publishing or printing their severe anti-JDP government criticism; in fact, the bastion of ulusalcı front, Aydınlık, upgraded to a daily newspaper in 2011. Dugin’s comments had immediate repercussion in the Turkish press. Hakan Aksay, a journalist with many years’ experience working in Moscow, wrote in his column at Taraf that by getting involved in the Ergenekon case, Russian Eurasianists had tried to provoke the Kremlin against Turkey. 112 Abdülhamit Bilici, a columnist of Zaman, a high-circulation newspaper, quoted Aksay and, after citing the anti-Turkish references in Osnovy geopolitiki, stated that he did not believe that the Russian authorities would take Dugin’s words seriously. 113 Later Aksay returned several times to the Ergenekon-Dugin connection 114 and the issue remained in the headlines.

“Failed Exodus”

165

But the real burst of news regarding the Russian link to Ergenekon came on October 20, 2008, when the trials began. 115 After just one day of the proceedings, the Russian newspaper Kommersant claimed that in the indictment the prosecutors indicated the Ergenekon was connected to the Russian intelligence services and that Dugin had played a mediator role. 116 This statement was likely fabricated to exaggerate Dugin’s role and potentially discredit Russia. First, Kommersant also mentioned that the Turkish intelligence services had denied any connection between Ergenekon and the Russian intelligence services. 117 Second, the authors of the comment presented Dugin’s words as if he was speaking during the first Ergenekon proceedings but the quoted words were five months old. Third, Dugin’s name did not appear 118 in the first Ergenekon indictment. 119 Fourth, in the summary of the indictment, prosecutors openly stated that they did not investigate Ergenekon’s foreign links because of the difficulty gathering evidence and that such an investigation required a special inquiry that could be done only by Turkish intelligence services. 120 So there was not any solid evidence in Kommersant’s claim except Dugin’s words acknowledging that he knew and had met with the accused people. Notwithstanding, this comment was immediately disclosed to the Turkish press as if Russian newspapers had found “the brain center of Ergenekon” in Moscow. Nerdun Hacıoğlu, a Moscow reporter of Hürriyet, one of the oldest Turkish newspapers, urgently transmitted this news the next day. 121 According to Hacıoğlu’s report, “Kommersant claimed that Dugin’s name was often cited in the indictment.” What’s more, the reporter added a false statement that Dugin was an ideologist for the presidential party, United Russia. This had a bombshell effect on public opinion because the case was perceived as a Russian conspiracy against Turkey. Then all newspapers and Internet websites began quoting each other without checking the 2,445-page indictment or examining the arguments that Kommersant put forward. Therefore, Dugin became even more popular in the press; journalists rushed to Moscow to interview him. Though Dugin denied the allegations in Hürriyet 122 and other Turkish newspapers stating that he had not any ties with the Ergenekon criminal organization, his name was indelibly engraved in the Turkish press and public opinion as “the mentor of Ergenekon.” Dugin was not unhappy to play up his relations with members of Ergenekon. His extended biography on his personal website included meetings with Generals Küçük and Kılınç, who were considered part of the inner circle of Ergenekon. 123 Dugin has defended the imprisoned figures, stating that they were pro-Russian and therefore they were victims of a NATO-U.S. plot. Dugin never cut ties with Perinçek’s clique; 124 instead, he completely adopted Perinçek’s outlook in his evaluations of Turkish politics. Furthermore, his websites have turned into a propaganda platform for the Workers’

166

Vügar İmanbeyli

Party. 125 Doğu Perinçek continues today to be a member of the Higher Council of the International Eurasianist Movement. CONCLUSION: THE FUTURE OF DUGIN IN TURKEY While Dugin initially had a relatively positive image that only grew when he tried to develop contacts in Turkey, he soon lost his reliability. At the outset, Dugin gave messages to traditionalist neo-Ottomanist advocates, emphasizing the imperial past of Turkey and despising its secular nation-state building; thus, he might be expected to upgrade his contacts with neo-Ottomanists or Turkists. However, he instead became a close ally with their opponents, neo-Kemalists who praised republican Turkey and sought to complete the Kemalist Revolution. After meeting with them, Dugin quickly altered his views and became a defender of the neo-Kemalists, defining them as proRussian forces. In turn, they helped to increase Dugin’s visibility on Turkey’s public scene. Nevertheless, if Osnovy geopolitiki had not been translated into Turkish, Dugin might have remained popular among Turkey’s intellectuals and influential for many years to come because of his initial positive reception. But the harsh anti-Turkish position and extreme geopolitical stance in this book offended many influential people in Turkey. Though he later insisted that he had changed his views and went on to publish pro-Turkish titles, these steps could not fix his damaged image. Moreover, Dugin’s close relations with Doğu Perinçek and the Workers’ Party also deteriorated his “brand.” This party had a long Leninist-Maoist past and scant electoral base, having never gained more than 0.5 percent of votes in legislative elections. Being identified with Perinçek in public opinion, Dugin could not expand his network of contacts. Last but not least, Dugin’s full support for members of the Ergenekon criminal organization limited his influence. In effect, he backed the wrong horse in Turkey. Many of Dugin’s allies in Ergenekon, including Doğu Perinçek and Veli Küçük, were discredited after the trials. Attempts to stage a coup d’etat were prevented by the government and military tutelage is now about to end in Turkey. Considering all of these developments, it would not be difficult to say that Dugin has lost his credibility with large segments of Turkish society. It will be a tough task for him to erase his ties with the coup plotters in the democratized Turkey. Dugin’s Turkish adventure can thus be remembered as a “failed exodus.”

“Failed Exodus”

167

NOTES 1. Alexander Dugin, Rus Jeopolitiği: Avrasyacı Yaklaşım, trans. Vügar İmanov (Istanbul: Küre Yayınları, 2003). 2. Vügar İmanov, Avrasyacılık: Rusya’nın Kimlik Arayışı [Eurasianism: Russia’s Quest for Identity] (Istanbul: Küre Yayınları, 2008). 3. Marlene Laruelle, “Russo-Turkish Rapprochement through the Idea of Eurasia: Alexander Dugin’s Networks in Turkey,” Jamestown Foundation Occasional Paper (April 2008). Accessed August 1, 2013, http://www.jamestown.org/uploads/media/Jamestown-LaruelleRussoTurkish_01.pdf. 4. Gareth Jenkins, “Between Fact and Fantasy: Turkey’s Ergenekon Investigation,” Silk Road Papers (Washington, D.C.: Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, 2009). 5. It was closed in 2001; instead of it, in 2009 a new TV channel TRT AVAZ was established which broadcasts in eight local languages. Avaz means “voice” in several Turkic languages. 6. Ulusalcı has different connotations than milliyetçi (nationalist). Nation and nationalism can be rendered in Turkish with two different words: ulus and millet/milliyet, so ulusalcılık and milliyetçilik. The leftist nationalists used the first one, the conservative Turkists the latter. Here, I use nationist to refer to ulusalcı movements. 7. Mirsaid Sultan Galiyev (1892–1940) was a journalist-activist who worked in Kazan, Ufa, and Baku and, after joining the Bolshevik Party in November 1917, held important positions in the Ministry for Nationalities (Narkomnats) and promoted ideas for the struggle of oppressed Muslim peoples against colonial regimes. Nevertheless, he soon fell out with Stalin and in 1923 was expelled from the party due to his “Pan-Turanist deviation and anti-Soviet stance.” He was arrested, put on trial several times, and executed in 1940. 8. Hakan Reyhan, “Avrasya Gündemi” [Agenda for Eurasia], Ulusal, no. 4 (Fall 1997): 3–5. 9. Bülent Ecevit, “Bölge Merkezli Dış Politika” [Region-Centered Foreign Policy], Ulusal, no. 4 (Fall 1997): 6–12. 10. Kaan Öğüt, “Kemalist Bakış Açısıyla Avrasya Güçbirliğinin Değerlendirilmesi” [Evaluation of Eurasian Coalition from the Kemalist Point of View], Ulusal, no. 4 (Fall 1997): 73–94. 11. Anıl Çeçen, “Atatürk ve Avrasya,” Ulusal, no. 3 (1996): 15–24. A decade later, Çeçen published a book with a similar title, see: Anıl Çeçen, Türkiye ve Avrasya (Ankara: Fark Yayınları, 2006). 12. These are two formal, but ineffective defense alliances promulgated in the 1930s. The Balkan Pact (1934), aimed at preventing foreign aggression against Turkey, Greece, Yugoslavia, and Romania, could not prevent Axis incursions into the Balkans. The Sadabat Pact (1937) was a nonaggression agreement signed by Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan. 13. His works include Attilâ İlhan, Sultan Galiyef: Avrasya’da Dolaşan Hayalet, 2nd ed. (Istanbul: Türkiye İş Bankası Kültür Yayınları, 2005); Dönek Bereketi (Istanbul: Türkiye İş Bankası Kültür Yayınları, 2002); Yıldız, Hilâl ve Kalpak: Gâzi’nin ‘Ulusal’ Solculuğu, 2nd ed. (Istanbul: Türkiye İş Bankası Kültür Yayınları, 2004). 14. Mehmet Perinçek, Avrasyacılık: Türkiye’deki Teori ve Pratiği [Eurasianism and Its Theory and Practice in Turkey] (Ankara: Bilgi Yayınevi, 2006). Half of the book is devoted to his own speeches, which is unusual for a book claiming to be theoretical. The theoretical section is also full of notes about conferences, visits, and other gatherings. 15. AYSAM was a think tank attached to Ahmet Yesevi University, a joint Turkish-Kazakh higher education institution founded by N.K. Zeybek. 16. “Yeni Avrasya Yayın Hayatına Başladı” (February 2000). Accessed February 15, 2006, http://www.yesevi.edu.tr/ayhaber/old_issues/012_subat2000/19avrasya.htm; Namık Kemal Zeybek, “Ortalık Asya Birliği” [Central Asian Union], Asya-Avrupa, no. 3 (July 2005): 4–9; “Yeni Dünya Düzeninde Avrasya ve Avrasyacılık” [Eurasia and Eurasianism in the New World Order], Round Table Report (October 27, 2004). Accessed December 19, 2006, http:// www.aysam.gen.tr. 17. “Yeni Dünya Düzeninde Avrasya ve Avrasyacılık.”

168

Vügar İmanbeyli

18. Özcan Yeniçeri, “Çatışan ve Örtüşen Stratejiler Odağında Avrasyacılık ve Türkiye” [Eurasianism and Turkey in the conflicting and overlapping strategies], Asya-Avrupa, no. 1 (December 2004): 3–21; Özcan Yeniçeri, “Yeni Bir Türk Stratejisi ve Yeni Bir Türk Hamlesi” [A New Turkish Strategy and a New Turkish Move], Asya-Avrupa, no. 4 (March 2006): 12–37. 19. Ümit Özdağ, Türk Tarihinin ve Geleceğinin Jeopolitik Çerçevesi [Geopolitical Framework of Turkish History and Turkey’s Future] (Ankara: ASAM, 2003), 13–15. 20. Suat İlhan, Türklerin Jeopolitiği ve Avrasyacılık [Geopolitics of Turks and Eurasianism], 2nd ed. (Ankara: Bilgi Yayınevi, 2005). 21. Muhsin Öztürk, “Diyalog Dedik Da,” Aksiyon, no. 488 (April 12, 2004), http:// www.aksiyon.com.tr. 22. For example, V.I. Sheremet, “Vysokaia Porta v Evraziiskom Dialoge/Avrasya Diyaloğunda Osmanlı Devleti,” DA Diyalog Avrasya, no. 5 (2001): 86–95; Sergei Nefedov, “Timar: Osmanskaia Sistema v Drevnei Rusi/Tımar: Kadim Rus Diyarında Bir Osmanlı Sistemi,” DA Diyalog Avrasya, no. 8 (2003): 34–40. 23. For discussions between Kemal Karpat and two Russian writers, see: “Türkiye Açısından Avrasya,” DA Diyalog Avrasya, no. 1 (2000): 38–43; Kemal Karpat, “Avrasya’da Devlet Kavramını Çağına Uydurmak,” DA Diyalog Avrasya, no. 2 (2000): 28–33; A.V. Ivanov and M.Y. Shishin, “Istoricheskoe obosnovanie ‘turetskogo evraziistva’ predstavlyaetsya somnitel’nym” /Türk Avrasyacılığı’nın Tarihsel Temellendirilmesi Tartışmalıdır, DA Diyalog Avrasya, no. 6 (2002): 80–84. 24. Petr N. Savitski, “Evraziiskaya kontseptsiya russkoi istorii/Rus Tarihinin Avrasya Konsepti” [Eurasianist Concept of Russian History], DA Diyalog Avrasya, no. 1 (2000): 35–37. 25. Boris S. Erasov, “Rossiia v sisteme geopoliticheskogo i tsivilizatsionnogo ustroeniya Evrazii/Avrasya Jeopolitik ve Medeniyet Sisteminde Rusya” [Russia in the System of Geopolitical and Civilizational Building of Eurasia], DA Diyalog Avrasya, no. 1 (2000): 44–47. 26. M.S. Meyer, “Iz Istorii Evraziistva/Avrasyacılık Tarihinden” [From the History of Eurasianism], Diyalog Avrasya, no. 2 (2000): 98–105. This was the first evaluation of classical Eurasianism by the Russian author in the Turkish language. 27. İbrahim Kalın, “Bir Osmanlı Modelinden Bahsedebilir miyiz?” [Can We Talk about an Ottoman Model?], Yarın (March 2003): 20–21. 28. Some examples are: Burhan Metin, “Pax Ottomana’yı Hatırlamak,” Yarın (March 2003): 18–19; Abdullah Muradoğlu, “Osmanlı Gitti, Ortadoğu Bitti,” Yarın (March 2003): 24–25; Israel Shamir, “Ey Osmanlı, Geri Gel!,” Yarın (September 2005). Accessed October 2, 2006, http://www.yarindergisi.com. 29. Ahmet Özcan, “Üç Tarz-ı Siyaset,” Yarın (December 2005). Accessed March 20, 2006, http://www.yarindergisi.com. 30. Even in the book published in the 1990s, where authors claimed to present Eurasianism, there was only one article translated from German that analyzed classical Eurasianism. Other articles were not related to Eurasianism, but were interviews with and articles by such Russian nationalists as Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Sergei Kurginian. See Uygarlığın Yeni Yolu: Avrasya [Eurasia: A New Path of Civilization], ed. Erol Göka and Murat Yılmaz (Istanbul: Kızılelma Yayıncılık, 1998). 31. For a short Turkish version of the interview, see: “Çok Kutuplu Globalleşme Sürecini Destekliyorum” [I Support the Multiple Globalization Process], DA Diyalog Avrasya, no. 5 (2001): 10–13. As of November 29, 2014, a shortened Turkish version was available at http:// evrazia.info/article/4407. 32. The full Russian version of the interview was published in May 2002 in Osnovy Evraziistva [Foundations of Eurasianism] (Moscow: Arktogeia-Tsentr, 2002), 541–47. 33. Ironically, there is a Dugin on the editorial board of DA Diyalog Avrasya, but it is not Alexander. Professor Evgenii Dugin has worked for many years in the Council of the Federation, the upper chamber of the Russian parliament, in various positions. As of 2014, he was a member of the chamber’s Scientific Council. For his short biography, accessed November 29, 2014, see: http://www.ipk.ru/index.php?id=2524. 34. Aydın İbrahimov, “Rusya’nın Jeopolitiği: Gerçekler ve Gelişmeler” [Russian Geopolitics: Realities and Developments], Jeopolitik, no. 1 (Winter 2002): 133–39. Despite its subtitle

“Failed Exodus”

169

(“A Journal of Scientific Studies”), it seems that Jeopolitik was a mouthpiece of ulusalcı circles. 35. M. Murat Taşar, translated from German by Christian F. Wehrschütz, “Der Eurasismus als Teil der russischen Idee: zur Renaissance einer Ideologie der zwanziger Jahre,” Österreichische Militärische Zeitschrift, no. 34/1 (1996): 21–30. The translation was first published in the journal Ülke (July/August 1997) and then republished in, among other places, Uygarlığın Yeni Yolu: Avrasya [Eurasia: A New Path of Civilization], ed. Erol Göka and Murat Yılmaz (Istanbul: Kızılelma Yayıncılık, 1998), 23–40; and Menfaatler Çatışması Ortasında Türkiye [Turkey in the Middle of the Conflict of Interests], ed. Yılmaz Tezkan (Istanbul: Ülke Kitapları, 2000), 84–100. 36. Yılmaz Tezkan and M. Murat Taşar, Dünden Bugüne Jeopolitik [Geopolitics from the Past to Present] (Istanbul: Ülke Kitapları, 2002), 204–21. The title of the chapter was “Geopolitical Quest of the Russian Federation and New Eurasianism.” 37. Kadim Komşumuz Yeni Rusya [Our Old Neighbor: A New Russia], ed. Yılmaz Tezkan (Istanbul: Ülke Kitapları, 2001). What’s more, in mid-2000, Yılmaz Tezkan edited another book where half of the articles were related to Russian politics, including Wehrschütz’s abovementioned article on the classical Eurasianism. Tezkan never cited Dugin in this book, either. See Menfaatler Çatışması Ortasında Türkiye [Turkey in the Middle of the Conflict of Interests], ed. Yılmaz Tezkan (Istanbul: Ülke Kitapları, 2000). 38. Here authors gave short summaries of these works. Incidentally, they incorrectly stated that Osnovy geopolitiki was written by Dugin and General Nikolai P. Klokotov, although the latter did review the book. 39. Türkiye-Rusya Stratejik Diyalog Toplantısı [Turkey-Russia Strategic Dialogue Meeting], ed. Nazim Cafersoy (Ankara: ASAM, 2003), 31–32. 40. ASAM was a well-known Turkish strategic research center established by former generals, ambassadors, and intellectuals close to the MHP in the mid-1990s. After losing government support and funding, it closed in 2008. 41. Alexander Kadirbayev, “Tarihte Rusya ve Türkiye’nin Avrasyacılık Modelleri” [Eurasianist Models in the History of Russia and Turkey] in Türkiye-Rusya Stratejik Diyalog Toplantısı, 31–32. This was the first attempt to classify neo-Eurasianists before the Turkish audience. 42. “Obrashchenie partii Evraziya k evraziitsam Turtsii” [An Address of the Evraziia Party to the Turkish Eurasianists], (September 6, 2002). Accessed August 1, 2013, http:// www.evrazia.org. 43. “Türkler, Kürtler, Lazlar, Çerkezler, Türkmenler, Araplar, Rumlar! Sağ ve sol! Anarşistler, milliyetçiler ve Müslüman ananelerin muhafızları!” 44. “Rus Avrasyacılardan Çağrı” [Appeal from the Russian Eurasianists], Yarın (April 2003). Accessed October 2, 2006, http://www.yarindergisi.com. 45. Yılmaz Tezkan, “Rus Avrasyacılığı” [Russian Eurasianism], Yarın (March 2004). Accessed October 2, 2006, http://www.yarindergisi.com. 46. “. . . Avrasyacılık gerçekten özgür, mutlu ve çok kutuplu dünyaya dönüştür. Ve bu çiçekleşen dünyanın en güzel misk gülü, Türkiye olacaktır.” However, in the Russian version, the last sentence was slightly different: “Turkey would be one of the brightest poles.” See http:/ /evrazia.info/article/500, accessed August 2, 2013. 47. Dugin’s party was officially registered at the Russian Ministry of Justice under the name “Eurasian Union Political Party,” http://party.scli.ru/party_info/5043.htm. 48. A. Altay Ünaltay, “Senfonik Kişilik ve Avrasya İşbirliği” [Symphonic Identity and Eurasian Cooperation], Yarın (September 2002): 22–23. 49. “Alexander Dugin: ABD’ye Karşı Kıtasal Stratejik Bir Blok Şart” [Dugin: A Continental Strategic Bloc is a Must against the USA], Yarın (May 2003): 6. 50. Evgenii Bakhrevskii, “Rezultaty vyborov v Turtsii: na yuge evrazii peremeny?” [Results of Elections in Turkey: Change in South Eurasia?], Evrazia, November 30, 2002. Accessed August 1, 2013, http://www.evrazia.org. Bakhrevskii’s detailed comment indicated that he was well informed about the past and present of the Turkish politics. He now works at the Institute of Strategic Studies (RISI) under the Russian Presidency. I have not found any information on

170

Vügar İmanbeyli

the Internet about his connection to Leonid Bakhrevskii, who later translated some of Dugin’s articles into Turkish. 51. Alexander Dugin, “Evraziiskii zavet i geopolitika Turtsii” [Eurasian Calling and Turkey’s Geopolitics], Krasnaya Zvezda (January 28, 2003). Accessed August 1, 2013, http:// www.redstar.ru. 52. For Chernyshev’s (inter)views see: “Turtsiya i Rossiya dolzhny deystvovat’ sovmestno” [Turkey and Russia Should Act Together], DA Diyalog Avrasya, no. 6 (2002): 46–51 and “Evraziiskaya Turtsiya—Evraziiskaya Rossiya,” (March 15, 2003). Accessed August 1, 2013, http://www.evrazia.org. 53. “Dugin vstretilsya s poslom Turtsii” [Dugin met with Turkish ambassador]. Evrazia.org, February 28, 2003. Accessed August 1, 2013. 54. Alexander Dugin, “Turtsiya v evraziiskom virazhe” [Turkey in the Eurasian Bend], Izvestiia, March 18, 2003. Accessed August 1, 2013, http://izvestia.ru/news/274289. 55. Among the first texts was also a Turkish foreword of Osnovy geopolitiki translated by Dugin’s disciple Evgenii Bakhrevski. 56. Alexander Dugin, Rus Jeopolitiği: Avrasyacı Yaklaşım, trans. Vügar İmanov (Istanbul: Küre Yayınları, 2003). 57. Interview given to Inosmi.ru on June 10, 2008. Accessed August 1, 2013, http:// www.inosmi.ru/world/20080610/241918.html. 58. For example, one of the nationalist-Turkist websites, http://www.turkdirlik.com, published the full foreword (accessed February 18, 2004). 59. Dugin, Rus Jeopolitiği, ix–xviii. The Russian version of the foreword was also included in the book. 60. It may be useful to list statements and definitions related to Turkey to map the author’s perceptions when he wrote the book (page numbers are given from the translation version): Geopolitically Turkey is “regional power” (36); Contemporary Turkey was established by the Young Turks’ small, “secular” nationalism (38); Turkey’s secular regime (which stresses Atlanticist, Pan-Turkist character) (74); in the former Soviet Central Asia “Pan-Turkism” (Turkey, Atlanticism) competed with “Wahhabism” (Saudi Arabia, Atlanticism) and “fundamentalism” (Iran, anti-Atlanticism) (75); “agents of influence” (Turkey and Saudi Arabia) who attempt directly or indirectly the stability in the key places in Asia (76); a scapegoat role should be given to Turkey (78); the Kurdish separatists in Turkey should be supported (79); “the Turkish (pro-Turkish, that is, Atlanticist) spear” that can divide the Heartland exactly on the center (159); Atlanticist Turkey (177); Armenia was created for the purposes of blocking Turkey to expand toward the north and east, namely, toward Turkic Central Asia (179–80); all Turanist integrationist projects that would be initiated by the Atlanticist Turkey against Russia, Iran must be blocked; and the Heartland must declare a severe positional geopolitical war against Turkey and advocates of Pan-Turanism (182); the role of China is similar to Turkey, in other words, Turkey is the most dangerous geopolitical neighbor of Russia in the South. But Turkey is a member of NATO, therefore its strategic Atlanticism is obvious (186); China and Turkey are our geopolitical enemies (188); Turkey in all aspects is a completely geopolitical rival of Russia (207); Turkey is one of the geopolitical powers that may claim to create a “great space” in the East (258); Turkey tries to enter to Europe not as a real member of the European Great Space but as a political-ideological colony of the United States (260); Turkey that directly supports Caucasian peoples in their geopolitical campaigns against Russia-Eurasia (368); secular Turkey where the “enlightened Islam” tendency is in use (379); contemporary secular Turkey (a NATO member) that approaches extremely hostile to its fundamentalist and national-organic forces (381–82). 61. Dugin, Rus Jeopolitiği, 260. 62. Ibid., 260–61. 63. Igor Torbakov, “Europe Twin Sisters,” Open Democracy, June 14, 2013, https:// www.opendemocracy.net/od-russia/igor-torbakov/europe percentE2 percent80 percent99stwin-sisters. 64. Davut Başyiğit, “Rus Avrasyacılığı” [Russian Eurasianism], Yarın (October 2003). Accessed October 2, 2006, http://www.yarindergisi.com.

“Failed Exodus”

171

65. Ahmet Özcan, “Açık Mektup: Rus Avrasyacılığı” [An Open Letter: Russian Eurasianism], Yarın (November 2003). Accessed October 2, 2006, http://www.yarindergisi.com. (This letter is still on many websites and also in Ahmet Özcan, Açık Mektuplar [Open Letters] (Istanbul: Kızılelma Yayıncılık, 2004). 66. Although a retired general, Yılmaz Tezkan, again summarized Dugin’s main theses, he also stressed that there was no place for today’s Turkey in the Eurasian project and this Russian-centered project was the expression of Russian ideals to become again a superpower in the world. Yılmaz Tezkan, “Rus Avrasyacılığı,” Yarın (March 2004). Accessed October 2, 2006, http://www.yarindergisi.com. 67. Cengiz Sözübek, “Tersinden Amerikancılık: Dugin Avrasyası!” [The Reverse Americanism: Dugin’s Eurasia!], Yarın (May 2005): 18–20. 68. Cengiz Sözübek, “Satılık Müttefik: Rusya” [Ally for Sale: Russia], Yarın (July 2004). Accessed October 2, 2006, http://www.yarindergisi.com. 69. Muhsin Öztürk, “Diyalog Dedik Da,” Aksiyon, no. 488 (April 12, 2004). Accessed August 1, 2013, http://www.aksiyon.com.tr. 70. Abdülhamit Bilici, “Avrasyacıların Fikir Babası Orta Asya’yı İran’a Sunuyor” [The Mentor of Eurasianists Offers the Central Asia to Iran], Zaman, March 10, 2004, http://www. zaman.com.tr; Abdülhamit Bilici, “Rusya’nın Birinci Ortağı İran” [Russia’s First Partner is Iran], Aksiyon, no. 484, March 15, 2004, http://www.aksiyon.com.tr; Muhsin Öztürk and M. Yaşar Durukan, “Ulusalcıların Yeni Kızılelma’sı Avrusya,” Aksiyon, no. 484, March 15, 2004. Accessed August 1, 2013, http://www.aksiyon.com.tr. 71. Yakup Deliömeroğlu, “Yeni Avrasyacılık ve Duginizm” [New Eurasianism and Duginism], Türk Yurdu, no. 206 (October 2004). Accessed August 1, 2013, http://www.turkocagi.org. tr/exweb/modules.php?name=KitapTanitimandpa=showpageandpid=50. 72. Alexander Dugin, Nursultan Nazarbayev’in Avrasya Misyonu [Nazarbayev’s Eurasian Mission], trans. Lazzat Urakova and Nehriban Gençkal (Ankara: Yeni Avrasya Yayınları, 2006). 73. Özcan Yeniçeri, “Türkiye’ye Yönelik Stratejik Öngörüler!” [Strategic Calculations toward Turkey], Yeniçağ, December 14, 2008. Accessed August 1, 2013, http://www. yenicaggazetesi.com.tr. 74. Eşref Yalınkılıçlı, “Tarihin Coğrafya Ekseni: Yeni Avrasyacılık mı? Yeni Avrusyacılık mı?” ADAM Social Science Research Center, July 20, 2007. Accessed August 1, 2013, http:// www.adam.com.tr. 75. Suat İlhan, Türklerin Jeopolitiği ve Avrasyacılık [Geopolitics of Turks and Eurasianism], 2nd ed. (Ankara: Bilgi Yayınevi, 2005). 76. Alexander Dugin, Moskova-Ankara Ekseni: Avrasya Hareketinin Temel Görüşleri [Moscow-Ankara Axis: Fundamental Principles of Eurasian Movement], trans. Leonid Bakhrevski (Istanbul: Kaynak Yayınları, 2007). This book was composed of articles written between 2004 and 2006, a time during which Dugin radically changed his attitude regarding Turkey. 77. Osnovy Evraziistva, 35. 78. The text is available at http://www.evrazia.org/modules.php?name=Newsandfile= articleandsid=1558. Last accessed August 2, 2013. 79. “Vstrecha rukovodstva evraziiskogo dvizheniya s rukovodstvom Rabochei Partii Turtsii” [Meeting between Officials of the Eurasian Movement and the Turkish Workers’ Party], October 22, 2003. Accessed August 2, 2013, http://evrazia.info/article/1500. 80. There are many works that analyze the coalition of ulusalcı groups based on nationalism, for example, see: Onur Atalay, Kızıl Elma Koalisyonu: Ulusalcılar, Milliyetçiler, Kemalistler [Kızıl Elma Coalition: Nationists, Nationalists, and Kemalists] (Istanbul: Paragidma, 2006). 81. Details of the visit can be found at Mehmet Perinçek, Avrasyacılık: Türkiye’deki Teori ve Pratiği (Ankara: Bilgi Yayınevi, 2006) and also at www.evrazia.org, which published related files from Aydınlık, a weekly of the Workers’ Party. 82. Doğan is a former commander of the First Army deployed in Istanbul. The army was later known as the logistic and brain center of coup d’etat attempts against the JDP government. 83. Küçük founded the Intelligence Service of Gendarmerie (JİTEM). 84. And the last participant was a translator and expert on Turkish politics, associate professor Kaleriia Belova from MGIMO.

172

Vügar İmanbeyli

85. Mehmet Perinçek did not indicate that the ambassadors were retired at the time of the visit. 86. For the short proceedings, see: Perinçek, Avrasyacılık, 147–51 and 157–58. 87. Even later, when Perinçek’s publishing house printed some of Dugin’s main declarations and articles, a note on the introductory page states that Dugin’s book “often used unusual sentences and concepts”; see Dugin, Moskova-Ankara Ekseni, 11. This confession indicated also how well they understood each other’s texts. 88. Perinçek, Avrasyacılık, 153. 89. Ibid., 155. 90. Ibid., 163. 91. Chernyshev disclosed this detail in an interview with Evrazia.org on December 17, 2003. 92. “Dugin-Zaitsev: Problema Kipra v Turetskom Aspekte,” Evrazia.org, December 26, 2003. Accessed August 2, 2013. 93. Attila İlhan’s related comments in Cumhuriyet are “Laiklik Çeşitlemesi,” May 5, 2004; “Sakın, Gazi’den Sonrakiler,” May 7, 2004; “Avrasya Çeşitlemesi,” May 31, 2004; “Ortaklaşa Umut: Avrasya,” July 5, 2004; “İkisi de Ortodoks Ama,” July 17, 2004; “Hıristiyanlıkta Doğu Batı Çelişkisi,” May 23, 2005. All comments were accessed from http://www.tilahan.net on August 2, 2013. It should be noted that Dugin was not the central issue in these comments, and references to him were episodic. 94. Perinçek, Avrasyacılık, 95–96. 95. Ibid., 92–93. 96. Even the Greek Cypriot Ambassador to the United Nations, Andreas Mavroyiannis, declared that Russia believed that the United States and Great Britain had taken into consideration only Turkey’s interests and concerns; therefore, Moscow sought to interfere in order to maintain the balance on the island. Sema Emiroğlu, “Kıbrıs Tasarısına Rus Vetosu” [Russian Veto to the Cyprus Resolution], BBC Turkish Service, April 22, 2004. Accessed August 2, 2013, http://www.bbc.co.uk/turkish/europe/story/2004/04/040422_cyprusvetosema.shtml. 97. “Turtsiya i Rossiya smogut ponyat’ drug druga cherez evraziistvo” [Turkey and Russia Can Understand Each Other Via Eurasianism], (April 29, 2004). Accessed August 2, 2013, http://www.evrazia.org. 98. Perinçek, Avrasyacılık, 101–2. 99. Tuncer Kılınç, “Büyük Ortadoğu ile Avrasya’nın Geleceği ve Güvenliği” [Future and Security of the Great Middle East and Eurasia] (October 20, 2004). Accessed August 2, 2013, http://www.evrazia.org/modules.php?name=Newsandfile=articleandsid=1974. 100. Vadim Markushin, “Evrazyiskaya Os’” [Eurasian Axis], Krasnaya Zvezda, October 20, 2004. Accessed August 2, 2013, http://old.redstar.ru/2004/10/20_10/3_03.html. 101. A full Russian translation of the speech was also uploaded on Evrazia.org, November 8, 2004. 102. “Gazi Üniversitesi’nde Olay Çıktı,” İhlas News Agency, December 4, 2004, http://www. iha.com.tr; “Gazi Ünivesitesi’ndeki Olaylar Devam Ediyor,” İhlas News Agency, December 5, 2004, http://www.iha.com.tr. During the clashes, one of the correspondents from Sabah newspaper was also wounded; see “Muhabirimize Çirkin Saldırı,” Sabah, December 5, 2004. Accessed August 2, 2013, http://www.sabah.com.tr. 103. Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi (CHP), the founding party of the Turkish Republic, has been the main opposition party in the parliament since the 2000s. 104. For detailed accounts of the visit, see “Evraziiskoe turne A. Dugina po Turtsii” [Eurasian Tour of Dugin to Turkey], December 13, 2004. Accessed August 2, 2013, http://www. evrazia.org. 105. But actually it was published after three years, in December 2007. 106. Alexander Dugin, “Turetskii Gambit” [Turkish Gambit], Trud, January 12, 2005. Accessed August 2, 2013, http://www.trud.ru. 107. According to the Turkish mythology, Ergenekon was the birthplace of the Turkic people in Central Asia. 108. Ioannis N. Grigoriadis and Irmak Özer, “Mutations of Turkish Nationalism: From Neonationalism to the Ergenekon Affair,” Middle East Policy, no.4 (Winter 2010). Accessed Au-

“Failed Exodus”

173

gust 3, 2013, http://www.mepc.org/journal/middle-east-policy-archives/mutations-turkishnationalism. 109. Yana Amelina, “Troistvennii soyuz radi mnogopolyarnogo mira” [Trilateral Alliance for the Sake of the Multipolar World], Rosbalt, October 20, 2007. Accessed August 3, 2013, http:// www.rosbalt.ru/main/2007/10/20/423959.html. 110. It should also be noted that Dugin did not react to the arrest of General Veli Küçük in January 2008, although, according to Pavel Zarifullin, General Küçük, like Doğu Perinçek, was also a member of the High Council of the MED in Turkey. See Il’ya Dmitriev, “Tanki za arestovannymi.” Accessed August 3, 2013, April 2, 2008, http://www.evrazia.org. 111. Alexander Dugin, “Protiv Ameriki? V tyurm’u” [Against America? Go to Prison], March 22, 2008. Accessed August 3, 2013, http://www.evrazia.info/article/3916. 112. Hakan Aksay, “Avrasyacılar, Kremlin’i Türkiye’ye Karşı Kışkırtıyor” [Eurasianists Provoke the Kremlin against Turkey], Taraf, March 30, 2008. Accessed August 3, 2013, http:// www.taraf.com.tr. 113. Abdülhamit Bilici, “Ergenekon’un Tek Dış Desteği!” [The Only Foreign Backing to the Ergenekon], Zaman, April 5, 2008. Accessed August 3, 2013, http://www.zaman.com.tr. 114. Hakan Aksay, “Rusya ve Ergenekon I” [Russia and Ergenekon], Taraf, July 24, 2008; and “Rusya ve Ergenekon II,” Taraf, July 26, 2008. Both articles accessed August 3, 2013, at http://www.taraf.com.tr. In these comments, Aksay questioned the “pro-Russianness” of the Ergenekon members who attempted to topple the civil government by force. 115. Russian connections of General Levent Ersöz, the former chief of Gendarmerie Intelligence and one of the Ergenekon members, further reinforced the Russian-link argument. After retirement, Ersöz served as advisor for the Rosoboroneksport company in Ankara. When the trials began, he fled to Russia and was later arrested in Ankara upon his return. 116. Mikhail Zygar and Mais Alizade, “Turtsiya vskryla prorossiiskoe podpol’e” [Turkey Uncovered the Pro-Russian Underground Organization], Kommersant, October 21, 2008. 117. Actually in August 2008, the Taraf newspaper reported that Dugin’s name was included in the intelligence report that the Ergenekon prosecutor Zekeriya Öz had requested from Turkish Intelligence (MİT), Nevzat Çiçek, “Ergenekoncu Dugin MİT Raporunda,” Taraf, August 14, 2008. Accessed August 4, 2013, http://www.taraf.com.tr and “Putin’in Adamları Ergenekon Dosyasında,” Milliyet, August 15, 2008. Accessed August 4, 2013, http://www.milliyet. com.tr. However, Bugün newspaper reported the opposite news, conveying its astonishment that there was not any account regarding Dugin in MİT; see Ali Kuş, “Perinçek’in Filozofunu MİT Tanımıyormuş!” [MİT Did Recognize Perincek’s Philosopher!], Bugün, August 13, 2008. Accessed August 2, 2013, http://gundem.bugun.com.tr/perincekin-filozofunu-mit--haberi/ 36148. 118. Though Dugin’s name was cited once in the second Ergenekon indictment, it was not deemed significant because it came from one (probably anonymous) e-mail that alledged that “representative of the Russian deep state Dugin gave some secret files to Doğu Perinçek” about the NATO and American infiltration. See “II. Ergenekon İddianamesi” [The Second Ergenekon Indictment] (2009): 1233. The full text can be reached at http://www.ergenekonteror.com. 119. However, I found in the first Ergenekon indictment an interesting memo, written by a retired officer and special courier of Ergenekon, Mehmet Zekeriya Öztürk, that might be related to Dugin. When Öztürk recorded issues as to Eurasianism, he added this note: “8 December . . . The Russian delegation will come on 11 December. They want to have a meeting with generals.” See “I. Ergenekon İddianamesi” [The First Ergenekon Indictment], (July 10, 2008): 753. Accessed August 4, 2013, http://www.ergenekonteror.com. It may be assumed that he was mentioning Dugin because there is not any other reference to the Russian delegation in other indictments. When Dugin visited Turkey for the first time, he participated in the conference organized by the rector of Istanbul University, Kemal Alemdaroğlu, a close associate of Doğu Perinçek, on December 11, 2003, where he met with generals Veli Küçük and Çetin Doğan. Even Alemdaroğlu gave a dinner party in honor of Dugin. In the second visit, there was also a crowded farewell dinner on December 11, 2004. 120. “I. Ergenekon İddianamesi Özeti” [Summary of the first Ergenekon indictment], July 10, 2008: 46. Accessed August 4, 2013, http://www.ergenekonteror.com.

174

Vügar İmanbeyli

121. Nerdun Hacıoğlu, “Ergenekon’un Beynini Rus Basını Buldu” [The Russian Press Found Ergenekon’s Brain Center], Hürriyet, October 22, 2008. Accessed August 4, 2013, http:// www.hurriyet.com.tr. 122. Nerdun Hacıoğlu, “Dugin: Ergenekon Siyasi Sipariş” [Dugin: The Ergenekon is a Political Plot], Hürriyet, October 25, 2008, http://www.hurriyet.com.tr; Faruk Akkan and Yaşar Niyazbayev, “‘I Support Neo-Eurasianism, Not Ergenekon’ Says Dugin,” Today’s Zaman, October 29, 2008, http://www.todayszaman.com. All accessed August 5, 2013. 123. “Biografiya i osnovnye trudy” [Biography and Main Works]. Accessed September 7, 2013, http://dugin.ru/bio/. 124. For instance, see comments and interviews of Mehmet Perinçek at http:// www.evrazia.info (July 28, 2010; December 6, 2010, and April 6, 2011) or “Address of the Workers’ Party representative Semih Koray” on February 25, 2010, http://www.evrazia.org. All accessed August 5, 2013. Incidentally, the Workers’ Party delegation led by Semih Koray visited Dugin in July 2013. 125. For example, the Gezi protests of June 2013 were labeled as the Eurasian Revolution at http://www.evrazia.info and messages/photos sent from the Workers’ Party Youth Organization were published at http://www.rossia3.ru, the website of the ESM. The ESM openly characterized Turkish Prime Minister R. T. Erdoğan as “an absolute enemy of Russia,” on June 8, 2013. Accessed August 5, 2013, http://www.rossia3.ru. These websites were full of falsified information with regard to the Gezi events (for example, “the Turkish government blocked the Internet connection,” which contradicted reality) and anti-JDP propaganda.

Chapter Eight

Deciphering Eurasianism in Hungary Narratives, Networks, and Lifestyles Umut Korkut and Emel Akçali

When do myths become realities? Conservative and radical right-wing political and intellectual coalitions in Hungary on occasion decide that Hungarians are a better fit with a discursive imagination of Eurasian lands as a geographic and a geopolitical orientation in terms of their language, culture, and identity. This is especially the case when the country faces radical sociopolitical and economic transformation. This chapter explores Eurasian discourses in the post-2008 period, discusses relations with Eurasian powers such as Russia and China, and traces the historical roots of Eurasianism in Hungary from earlier periods. Ted Hopf states that “identities are intentionally or deliberately chosen, used, and/or strategically manipulated.” 1 Moreover, they are always relational, but only sometimes oppositional. 2 Following Hopf’s theoretical work, our assumption is that Hungarian politicians engage in a collective soul searching on what formulates Hungarian identity at times of political and economic turmoil. These leaders foster new identities as alternatives to those of their perceived challengers. In our chapter, we present the imagination and the creation of a new Eurasian—rather than European—identity at a time when the country is beset by the European economic crisis. We also refer to the intellectual history behind Eurasianism, which reemerged in Hungary in the form of Turanism over a decade ago. 3 Two questions frame our research. First, how do mythical references to identity enable political actors in Hungary to deliberately narrate new policy ideas to convince external and internal publics that new geopolitical associations are plausible and profitable? Second, why do these narratives linger? In response to these questions, we utilize both discursive and policy analysis 175

176

Umut Korkut and Emel Akçali

tools. We also introduce case-specific conceptual elaborations on Hopf’s theory and everyday geopolitics when we trace the historical roots and current expressions of Eurasianism in Hungary. Conservative and radical-right groups dominate post-2008 Hungarian politics. Fidesz (the Hungarian Civic Union), the party of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, won the 2010 election with a two-thirds majority and repeated its victory in 2014 to secure its majority in the parliament. Moreover, the radical-right Jobbik also increased its votes and became the second-biggest party, surpassing the disintegrated left in the 2014 local elections. Still, despite electoral victories and the dominance of the right, Orbán’s governance predominantly reflects the vulnerabilities that Hungary faces amid the economic crisis in the West. 4 Therefore, the EU-member Hungary offers a puzzling case as to why the governing elite searches for an “eastern alternative” not only in name but also as a policy, that is, keleti nyitás, and engages in a geopolitical alternative to its two-decades-long Atlanticist associations. While Hungary is geographically located in Europe and culturally and politically has been a part of Western Christianity for centuries, the nation maintains an ambiguous link with Eurasia. This may be a result of being at the periphery of the European system for a long time, but surely the recourse to new geopolitical aspirations such as the Eurasianism of its right-wing political elite serves to maintain this ambiguous relationship. Furthermore, given Hungary’s geopolitical position at the outer flank of the European Union and in the neighborhood with Ukraine, Russia, and the Caucasus, we argue that Eurasian narratives and networks in Hungary, the venues for the expression of this narrative, and alternative political ideologies and lifestyles find themselves largely at home in Hungary. This is not a recent phenomenon and has historical roots. In order to provide a comprehensive understanding of Eurasianism, this chapter delineates the everyday geopolitical practices and reciprocal transactions that it instigated, its narrative suggesting a connection in time and space between the mythical past and present in Hungary, and thereby a geopolitical and foreign policy alternative to the pattern that progressive and liberal Hungarian political forces have associated with the Hungarian history and geography since the beginning of the transition. As a contribution to the remaking of Eurasianism in Hungary, it is crucial to portray how a ubiquitous Asiatic reinterpretation of the Hungarian past and a conscious effort to identify Hungarians with their Asian brethren influenced public deliberation of current issues in Hungary. Furthermore, it is timely to understand how the radical right introduces re-considerations of democracy, economics, and international relations at home in Hungary through references to the Putin regime in Russia and how the radical right can bandwagon conservative-right groups such as Fidesz into a reassessment of the existing political and economic regimes in Hungary.

Deciphering Eurasianism in Hungary

177

Policy narratives can serve as crisis management tools amid deep transformation, and, in our case, these tools imply a quest for novel geopolitical alternatives. While crisis management theories provide an understanding of how alternative policy narratives emanate, there is a gap in the literature as to how these narratives grasp the imagination and the collective memory of the general public—let alone convince new external allies that collaboration with a small country can generate mutual advantages. Among the imagined lands of Hungarian mythical brethren, Russia, China, and Turkey have been regarded as the most significant states for the past century. The post-2008 period showed even more possible allies, such as Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and sometimes Iran. In order to explore the general question of how small nations have incorporated new external allies into their new imaginations of geopolitical alliances, we offer a study of Hungarian imaginations, bearing in mind that myths sometimes can become underlying assumptions during any such period of rapprochement. Overall, this chapter indicates how the construction of Eurasianism, Asiatic reinterpretation and representations of the Hungarian past, and conscious efforts to identify Hungarians with Eurasian nations put their sway on public deliberation of current issues in Hungary and affect Hungary’s new foreign policy alliances. Furthermore, our findings relate to changing considerations of democracy, as well as shifting economic and international relations with references to the Putin regime in Russia, increasing economic links with China, and a wider opening to Eurasian nations. MYTHS, MEMORY, COLLECTIVE IDENTITY, AND ACTIVISM As Hungary felt the impact of the global financial crisis after 2008, the radical right called for a moral transformation that required “new generations to stand up [against conspiracies] as well as [to] express themselves internationally with pride.” 5 This transformation was needed amid the crisis that the country faces, the profit or gains that people sought despite the crisis, and the lack of communal feeling toward those who are in trouble. 6 As banal as it sounds, such activism is profitable thanks to print and social media outlets and their efforts to reconstruct national pride—much as Benedict Anderson 7 showed how new nation-states encouraged and funded such images and writing to reinforce the contours of the new national identities. 8 However, extreme expressions of Hungarian nationalism also became commonplace as popular culture became a tool for everyday expressions of Hungarianness. The new nationalism in Hungary combined the expressions and tools of both high and popular culture. 9 In this sense, there is a truth-producing aspect of remembering the mythical past in order to support alternative geopolitical inclinations.

178

Umut Korkut and Emel Akçali

Culture, as shared belief systems and worldviews, provides the “toolkit” that actors use to construct their worldviews and devise strategies of action. 10 Culture retains the legacies of the past as meaningful elements of the present. However, the social imaginary of collective stories, histories, and ideologies that inform our understanding of the past may also blind us to history. With his seminal work on “banal” nationalism, Michael Billig 11 was one of the first to methodologically and theoretically weave “little things” with high geopolitics. The notions of everyday geopolitics and of connecting the geopolitical with the everyday have also appeared in the works of feminist writers such as Enloe, 12 Hyndman, 13 and Secor. 14 Based on a 2005 survey, Vásárhelyi 15 draws attention, for instance, to the widespread public belief in conspiracies in Hungary. The belief in the glory of the nation in some mythical past and “phantasmagoric recollection,” as Vásárhelyi calls it, appeals particularly to educated and cultivated Hungarians. 16 In a fascinating work that deals with the construction of memory in Marcel Proust’s work, Jacqueline Rose states, “The act of memory is inextricably, and ethically, bound to our recollection of the dead.” She asks: “If we cannot find our way in the house of memory, how can we possibly, with any degree of sureness, call to life those we have lost?” 17 Rose continues, “Memory, writes [Pierre] Nora, is a perpetually actual phenomenon—open to dialectic of remembering and forgetting, unconscious of its successive deformations. If memory is permanently on the move, it is because of its proclivity to distort itself.” 18 Considering the nature of memory, the diffusion of ideas regarding the mythical roots of Hungarians in the recent context of Hungarian politics is simply fascinating. The memories of the past require agency to foster a new generation of Hungarians proud of their mythical past 19 as “responsible and moral” citizens of a new more patriotic, nationalist “citizenship-regime.” 20 This is thanks to the discursive practice supported by entire belief systems depicting how Hungarians “were.” The reproduction and dissemination of such practices are in direct proportion not only to the amount of resources mobilized through networking ties and to the strength of the ties forged, but also to the capacity of those interested actors to enclose them in a “black box.” 21 Memory strongly relates to the sturdiness of this black box. Cultural practices associated with memory demonstrate that the registers of justification and evaluation 22 and the reproduction of regimes of action 23 reflect on a naive belief of stability in a mythical past. Memory provides the terminology through which those convinced communicate about their dreams. It is influential precisely because much of it is taken for granted and not amenable to scrutiny as a whole. 24 In periods of instability, establishing and reaffirming our sense of the familiar is also comfortable. In the Hungarian case, what is familiar is not necessarily in the present, but in some proud past thanks to a conscious

Deciphering Eurasianism in Hungary

179

creation of memory supported by myths, as this chapter explores, but also by clothing styles invoking vintage Hungarian military uniforms or ancient Asiatic costumes, alternative medicine based on esoteric practices, food products supplied by the Carpathian Basin, as well as heritage festivities. 25 Overall, the importance of cultural practices resembles the role of media, that is, as a tool to communicate to the people “what to think about” rather than “what to think.” 26 The cultural practices that this chapter studies are also reminiscent of nineteenth-century nationalism and national-identity theory “since the fundamentals of nation building almost always included some cultural components, linguistic or religious, that survived from earlier historical phases, clever engineering contrived to make them into hooks on which the history of nations could be skillfully hung.” 27 However, to promote a homogeneous collective idea in modern times, it was necessary to provide, among other things, a long narrative suggesting a connection in time and space between the fathers and the “forefathers” of all members of the present community. The agents of memory work hard to invent this narrative since the reinforcement of an abstract group loyalty needs rituals, festivals, ceremonies, and myths in order to invent a unifying collective memory. 28 As Tom Nairn adds, the “new middle-class intelligentsia of nationalism had to invite the masses into history; and the invitation-card had to be written in a language they understood.” 29 There appeared a “family myth” that laid down the roles and prerogatives of the family members in their reciprocal transactions. 30 Before we present the policy implications of these identity formulations, the next two sections demonstrate how geopolitical practices remain in the background of identity formation and enable novel political discourses when politicians can align policies with these cultural practices. TURANISM: AN EARLY HUNGARIAN FASCINATION WITH THE EAST Turanism, a comparable search for association with Eurasian nations, occurred early in the twentieth century, but, unlike now, it was not fully embraced by the radical right. The linguist Max Müller’s 1854 book, On the Classification of Turanian Languages, is considered to be the origin of the Turanist idea. The linguist grouped all languages that did not fit in with the existing language groups into the Turanian language group. While this was a haphazard generalization, the new qualifier generated the Turanian myth to satisfy the nationalist soul-searching at Europe’s semi-periphery. 31 Turanism reached its peak in Hungary in 1910 with the publication of a poetry book, A Turáni Dalok (Turanian Songs), by Árpád Zemplényi. This was an expression of disappointment with Europe and a glance toward the East as the real source of brotherhood. 32 Such sentimental stimulation encouraged the Hun-

180

Umut Korkut and Emel Akçali

garian Turanists, mostly well-known academics, politicians, and nobles, to inaugurate the Turáni Tarsaság (Turan Society) in the same year. 33 The founding charter of the society states its aim is to teach, to develop, and to recognize the sciences, arts, and economies of Asian and kin nations of Hungary in Europe and to harmonize them with Hungarian interests. 34 The Turan Society organized informative conferences about other Turanic societies and sponsored anthropological and social science research trips to Anatolia, the Caspian Sea region, the Caucasus, and inner Asian lands to study their economic conditions. 35 Although public interest in these activities initially remained limited, with the support of official institutions, such activities gained increasing popularity over time. 36 The Turan Society and the concept that it developed contributed to the Hungarian intellectual sphere until World War II. 37 However, it was also divisive. While some considered it to be neither linguistic, historical, ethnogeographical, nor political, but merely geographical, 38 for others this signified civilizational, racial, or simply historical associations—sometimes at the face of maltreatment by the West. In the aftermath of the infamous Trianon Treaty of 1920, for example, Turanism reminded Hungarians that they were not without kin and that they could turn to their Asiatic brethren in the face of Western deception. 39 Hungarians’ civilization-making role also related to the Turanian paradigm, as Paikert 40 emphasized the Hungarians’ relation with the original creators of civilizations, such as the Sumerians, Hittites, and Cretans as well as the lost civilizations of the Himalayas and Central Asia. Therefore, the Turanian creativity was immemorial, had been great in the past, and would be in the future as well. Beyond intellectual history, in the background of the more “scientific” debates about Turanism lay the racial roots of Hungarians. Specifically, there is the ongoing debate about whether Hungarians have a mixed bloodline from the finn-ugor and ural-altay nations, as advocated by the Hungarian Turkologist Ármin Vámbéry, 41 and more racially fixed elaborations on Hungarian genes by the racial scientist Lajos Méhely. 42 According to the latter, while the Hungarian peasantry bore the characteristics of finn-ugor nations both with their physical characteristics and work habits, the Hungarian nobility must have been of Turkic origin, given their gallantry, statesmanship, and strong physical features. Yet, as Ablonczy 43 underlines, the Turanist movement also sought economic advantages in enhancing Hungary’s relations with the Eastern nations. For Hungary, Turanism promised new markets as well as a political position that would balance Pan-Germanism and Pan-Slavism. At a meeting of the Turan Society on January 31, 1914, the organization’s vice-president, Alajos Paikert, stated that Hungary had no colonies and no desire to possess any. However, there was a need for economic expansion, support from the other brotherly nations of Turan, and exalted feelings of reciprocity and together-

Deciphering Eurasianism in Hungary

181

ness. 44 One can detect a tone of “white men’s burden” in Paikert’s conceptualization of the role that the Hungarians were to play vis-à-vis their Turanian brethren. Gömbös went as far as calling for “digging out the hard clot of Asia.” He continued: “dig, dig, dig out the past, [not only that but also] the Hungarian past.” 45 As such, the Hungarian elite pursued Turanism as a quest to seek political and economic benefits beyond their borders. Therefore, the Turanists invoked pagan warriors on horseback, roaming the Asian steppes in their symbolism and rhetoric. 46 In this vein, the Turanists called for an “end to the age of servility to the West,” pledged not to “shed more blood in the defense of the Occident,” and called for the “unification of all Turanians” against the dual evils of “Semitic corruption and Aryan decadence.” 47 The turning point for the Hungarian Turanists in the twentieth century was the emergence of Italian fascism. The Turanists admired Mussolini, regarding him as the leader of a bloodless revolution and admiring his resistance to socialist irrationality, anarchy, and his struggle to establish the rule of law. 48 There were conspicuous efforts to implement fascism in Hungary at this period, and, reaching beyond Italy, the Hungarian Turanists also looked for ways to cooperate with their Turkish counterparts. 49 In the aftermath of World War II and the installation of the communist regime in Budapest, however, the Turanist discourse ebbed and the alleged Scythian-Hunic roots of Hungarians became marginalized. FROM TURANISM TO EURASIANISM While the radical right has been an endemic part of Hungarian politics since the regime change in 1989, the most daring declaration of Eurasianism among their ranks occurred in January 2010. Two Jobbik politicians, Márton Gyöngyösi and Tamás Hegedűs, authored a long report entitled “The Strategic Turn toward the East” in the party newsletter, Barikád. The report emphasized that not only was the center of gravity in the global economy shifting toward the East due to the financial crisis in the West, but also that the Eastern societies had demonstrated that they could maintain their integrity, traditional community, and value systems better than the Westerners. The authors referred to the increasing importance that the Shanghai Cooperation Organization had acquired lately as an opponent of the unipolar U.S. hegemony, how the post–Cold War considerations of Samuel Huntington and Francis Fukuyama on the future of the Western domination were bound to fail, and the deep crisis in Europe not only in terms of the economy but also values, demography, and Christianity—the latter especially in the face of the increasing influence of Islam. In this picture, the authors depicted Hungary as lacking economic sovereignty, with a national self-consciousness in tatters, and general health and

182

Umut Korkut and Emel Akçali

demographic indicators rapidly worsening. In other words, the Hungarian people had become frustrated, unhappy, and desperate. The authors suggested that a change in foreign policy orientation could present the Hungarians with an economic and spiritual pedestal without which the country could not elevate itself from this crisis. Hence, it was taken for granted that the country had to move away from the aging and decadent West—which had buckled under the strain of eroding internal cohesion and identity—and move toward the consolidating East, which represented economic and demographic opportunities. 50 This turn toward the East did not exclude Muslim nations. While the Jobbik party had previously criticized increasing expressions of Islam in Europe, 51 Gyöngyösi and Hegedűs considered the big family of Turkish nations to be their “Muslim believer siblings” and advocated increased relations with Turkey and Kazakhstan. According to the authors, these nations were the inheritors of the same culture and spirit of Turanian and Hunic roots. Along with the regional importance of Turkey, the authors emphasized Kazakhstan as the true bridge between Europe and Asia and a center of balance among the West, Turkey, Russia, and China. In terms of Russia, however, the authors did not emphasize cultural similarities, although they considered Moscow just as important as an economic and military power as Ankara and Astana, but they primarily noted the similar experiences that both the Russians and the Hungarians had to endure—specifically, having ethnic kin living beyond their borders. Therefore, if anyone should know what it meant to be a broken nation, it should be the Russians. 52 Just as the radical right had previously endorsed Mussolini, this time they were attracted to Russian president Vladimir Putin and his leadership. Overall, according to Gyöngyösi and Hegedűs, Hungary had a unique opportunity with its Eastern orientation: among all of the Western nations, Hungary was the only nation that the Asian countries could consider as family. They argued that a new strategy for external economic and political relations would require four pillars. The first one was to rest on the kin state of Kazakhstan and the second on Turkey, which could become the driving force of the Turanian bloc. However, any prospective Turanian strategic international collaboration would also require cooperation with the two dominant powers of Eurasia: Russia and China. Hence, the revitalized Russia would function not only as an energy superpower, but also as a source of stability thanks to its massive military strength. Its key strength was also its alternative model of traditionalism vis-à-vis the declining West. The final pillar was China. Gyöngyösi and Hegedűs considered China a prospective strategic partner for Hungary, given its massive capital stock and status as the only force that could protect Hungary in case of massive exit of foreign capital. 53

Deciphering Eurasianism in Hungary

183

Therefore, the two Jobbik party officials emphasized that an eastward turn was not merely soul-searching idealism, but had realistic foundations. 54 It is striking that both Gyöngyösi and Hegedűs previously had successful positions in Western multinational enterprises both in Budapest and abroad. Furthermore, Gyöngyösi is a graduate of the respected Trinity College in Dublin. Their ideas had resonance across the Jobbik circles and, as we will see, on Fidesz as well. The Jobbik leader Gábor Vona joined the neo-Turanian debate when he stated, “Hungary stood desperately lonesome in the arena of world politics,” was incapable of fostering independent, key economic and political relationships in the Western world, and was “in dire need of close and supportive alliances.” 55 At this juncture, the East appeared as a solution for long solitude of Hungarians in Europe. Furthermore, he declared that if wicked lies about the Finno-Ugric origins of Hungarians were to be put aside, Hungarians would profess that they were the descendants of Attila and “would suddenly find hundreds of millions ready to form a common basis for alliance.” 56 Vona, in his 2012 state of the nation speech, ranked traditionalism, monarchism, Turanism, and Hungarianism in order of importance for his party, but also indicated that all these values should be part of the same platform. Moreover, Csanád Szegedi, deputy chairman of Jobbik and one of its representatives in the European Parliament, openly advocated leaving the EU and establishing a new “Turanian” alliance with Central Asian states, Russia, Iran, and Turkey. 57 Still, Jobbik has not fully embraced the Turanian idea. In 2012, Vona also indicated that the Turanian idea naturally had its limits and resonance, which can change based on flexible interpretations. The spirit of Turanism could be celebrated at festivals held with the Eastern kindred, but those who came to these festivals embraced modern, Western lifestyles much more in their daily lives. That is why Vona suggested that Turanism could serve as the ideology for long-term change. 58 Later, during the 2014 local elections, it became apparent that one faction of the party, represented by MEP Béla Kovács, believed the Russian element should be emphasized over fraternity with Muslim Turanian nations. Discontent with the Turkish (as well as Iranian 59) investors in Tiszavasvári—a local government run by Jobbik—reverberates within the party’s Russophile camp. 60 Our interview with Márton Gyöngyösi, who serves as the Jobbik member in the Hungarian Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Relations, expressed the predominant Turanist voice in Jobbik. Gyöngyösi stated that Hungarians were Asiatic and their “true” friendship rests within the Asiatic brethren. In fact, according to Gyöngyösi, this has been scientifically proven: “[Hungarians] have Asian ethnicity, this is genetics . . . the genetics are given, religion is a choice. . . . [It is] difficult to describe what ties me to a Kazakh, Uzbek, and/or to a Turk. . . . It is about feelings. I cannot generalize, but a lot of

184

Umut Korkut and Emel Akçali

Hungarians feel this way.” 61 Equally, Gyöngyösi stated his great respect for Putin and belief in closer cooperation with Russia and the Eurasianist movement in order to counterbalance Western influence on Hungary. As to whether this creates a controversy vis-à-vis the Turanist orientation of Jobbik, Gyöngyösi offers the following interpretation: My attachment to Russia and Turanism are mutually exclusive. . . . Russia knows what I mean by Turanism. They are suspicious . . . but we’re a small nation. . . . All the imperial forces clashed here . . . Hungary fought against the Ottomans, Habsburgs, Russians and we needed to protect our identity language against occupiers. . . . Huntington’s clash of civilization is also about this land. . . . He [Huntington] gives realpolitik a huge emphasis: we have a handicap, we are Hungarian, Turanic, we are surrounded by Latins, Germans, Slavs, and why do we see Russia a friend? . . . Jobbik’s diagnosis is that we are at the crossroads of civilizations and we can only survive when all these powers mentioned above are balanced. If one power is higher, we cannot breathe; their influence needs to be balanced. Hence, you manipulate the superpowers; Rákoczi tried to manipulate the Habsburgs, Horthy’s maneuver was similar. . . . Hungary has always been doing this. 62

It is therefore clear that Turanism, together with Eurasianism, have become the geopolitical imaginations par excellence, which permit Jobbik to propose solutions for Hungary’s “national” interests, socioeconomic problems, and identity and also controversies about Hungarians’ roots, attachments, and history. EURASIANISM RELOADED: THE EASTERN TURN IN HUNGARIAN FOREIGN POLICY The Eurasian aspirations of the radical right resonate among Fidesz circles, especially in how Orbán narrates Hungary’s position in the post-economiccrisis world. In 2010, the newly elected prime minister spoke to the Hungarian Permanent Conference, a body that represents Hungarian ethnics in neighboring countries. Orbán stated that while there should be no doubt that Hungary belongs to the Western world: from now on, this fact will imply another connation. In a simplified or a caricatured way, we are sailing under the Western flag, but in world economy an Eastern wind blows. And the sailor that does not take into consideration according to which wind to rotate the sails will doom himself and his cargo. 63

More recently, in a speech delivered at the July 2014 Tusványos Summer School, Orbán pledged to institutionalize an illiberal state in Hungary in order for the country to manage a post-2008 crisis world where “anything became possible,” alluding to the “success of illiberal and perhaps non-

Deciphering Eurasianism in Hungary

185

democratic countries such as Singapore, China, India, Russia, and Turkey” as “stars” in terms of their international economic performance. 64 Emphasizing the achievements of these illiberal regimes, Orbán indicated that in order for Hungary to prosper in the race for global competitiveness, it should explore ways to tear itself away from the dogmas and ideologies of Western Europe, such as liberalism. 65 Thereby, Hungarian politics illustrate that anti-Western ideas resonate among the ranks of the conservative right, not just the radical right. Let us examine the discursive and policy tools used to disseminate the Eurasianist ideals of Fidesz. Ideologically, conservative right-wing proponents of an Eastern opening primarily cited problems in the European economy, such as its current political structures, the introduction of the euro, the center-periphery conflict leading to the “colonization of the periphery” by the center, the construction of a knowledge-based economy merely in the center, the budget deficit, and the declining education levels in the EU. 66 In response, however, the left-liberal writers warn that the discursive formulation of opening to the East also paves the way to an “Eastern” manner of leadership and governance 67 as well as collaboration with Eastern autocrats at the expense of tearing Hungary away from its Western partners. Specifically, they warn about the rapprochement between Hungary and Russia as well as between Hungary and China. Yet, Fidesz insists that an eastward turn promises new raw material opportunities and markets for Hungarian firms. According to then-undersecretary of foreign and external economic relations Péter Szijjartó, who became foreign minister in 2014, the Hungarian opening to the East rests on four pillars. These are: (1) building close ties with the Far East—especially China; (2) strengthening cooperation with countries such as Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Kazakhstan as their trade strategies fit well with the supply structure of the Hungarian market; (3) paying more attention to and refining trade links with the Arab world; and (4) concentrating on the western Balkans. In addition, Szijjartó also mentions a search for cooperation opportunities with African and South American countries. 68 Indeed, looking for new markets during the economic crisis has been a common trend in Austria, Germany, 69 and the United Kingdom. Yet, as Kálnoky 70 states, there was no talk of an eastern opening in Germany that would suggest a basic market strategy with a new geopolitical direction. Hungarian political history offers reasons to associate increasing Hungarian interest in Eurasia with a search for a novel geopolitical alternative. This historical interest finds expression in the politics of the radical right in Hungary under the banner of neo-Turanism. In essence, within Jobbik circles this ideology aspires to terminate Hungary’s alliance with the Euro-Atlantic community. 71 Fidesz’s response to the global financial crisis suggests that there are many similarities between modern Hungarian politics and Budapest’s response to the global economic crisis of the interwar period—the economic

186

Umut Korkut and Emel Akçali

environment that generated Turanism. 72 The common threads are the importance of nonallied politics, economic unorthodoxy, and hostility to banks and elites. There are also significant ramifications of radical-right positions for Orbán, insomuch as he depicts the Western liberals and international capitalists as the main actors responsible for Hungary’s economic and political collapse in the 2000s. Thus, we have reasons to consider the July 2014 speech at the Tusványos Hungarian Summer School, quoted above, as an indication that the eastern turn may also imply a search for an illiberal political alternative to the liberalization and Westernization that allegedly brought about the Hungarian crisis. Surprisingly, the shift away from Europe due to its “crisis” is being driven by a leader who enjoys a comfortable second term of government with full control of executive and legislative institutions. Orbán also enjoys a substantial flow of EU regional and structural funds that has not dampened his Euroskeptic rhetoric. At the same time, while Euroskeptic or outright rejectionist language toward the EU has grown extensively all across Europe since the 2008 crisis, it is only in Hungary that the conservative right is presenting geopolitical alternatives to Europe to the public. It is true that the radical-right Jobbik party adopted a similar position after the onset of the crisis, 73 but the increasing rhetorical recourse to citing the vulnerability of a small state in the post-2008 crisis world now emanates from the conservative right and manifests itself in the search for alternatives to EU integration. To be clear, our expectation is not that Hungary would renounce its EU membership or sever the lucrative ties it enjoys through the Single Market. Yet, in assessing whether Orbán’s rhetoric is backed by real actions, we need a concrete alternative that the state might use to lessen its dependence on Europe—a dependence we have shown to be a Fidesz obsession and a central part of Orbán’s political communication to Hungarian voters. THE INCREASING IMPORTANCE OF RUSSIA FOR THE HUNGARIAN RIGHT The 2014 energy deal allowing Russia to invest in the extension of the Paks nuclear energy plant in Hungary is the most recent expression of this alternative. The Hungarian liberal press have loudly criticized the cost of extension, the terms of the credit from Russia, and the introduction of Russian technology involved. Hungary further engaged itself with Russia in terms of energy provision as it has become a vehement supporter of South Stream—a pipeline project that would carry Russian gas to Europe under the Black Sea and circumvent Ukraine—even if this would imply yet another case of Hungary’s dependence on Russia for energy. 74 An energy alliance may be emerging between Russia and Hungary, as indicated by the government’s September

Deciphering Eurasianism in Hungary

187

2014 decision to suspend gas supplies to Ukraine amid Kyiv’s troubles with Moscow. 75 Relations between Hungary and Russia have not always been as cozy, and earlier Fidesz was not as enthusiastic over Eastern politics. The first Orbán government (1998–2002) clashed with Russia somewhat regarding energy issues, but mostly due to the high level of Russophobia among the Hungarian population. Nonetheless, Russian capital first began to express an interest in the Hungarian energy market during Orbán’s first government and during Putin’s rise to power, when Russian companies started to expand into European energy markets. Russia was particularly interested in the Hungarian chemical industry firm BorsodChem. Gazprom acquired shares of BorsodChem through a series of complex deals, and the Fidesz government did not intervene at the time. Furthermore, as a result of these complex deals, the Hungarian oligarchs established links with Russian gas officials. 76 Following Fidesz’s 2010 electoral victory, the Orbán government pursued national ownership of energy firms. In 2013, the Hungarian national energy group MVM purchased the E.ON Natural Gas Trade and E.ON Natural Gas Storage companies from their German owners. The former has substantial value thanks to a contract that allows Gazprom to bring gas in to Hungary and sell it to wholesale gas providers downstream, while the Russian firm owns part of the infrastructure for the Hungarian gas trade. The national ownership of these firms means that Hungarian taxpayers paid for the purchase of two lucrative energy companies from their German owners. The Hungarian government needed to make compromises with Gazprom in order to guarantee that these companies operate without losses and to maintain lower energy costs for Hungarian consumers—a major populist policy tool of Fidesz. 77 Jobbik has also pursued its own version of the Russian alternative, establishing special relations between the party and Russian nationalist forces. In May 2013, Alexander Dugin invited Jobbik’s leader, Gábor Vona, to present a lecture in Moscow on the topic of “Russia and Europe.” During this visit, Vona met several leading Russian politicians and had discussions with them about important issues of Hungarian-Russian relations, including bilateral economic ties, potential Hungarian exports to Russia, the European Union, and the EU as the “traitor” of the European continent. During his lecture at Moscow State University, Vona emphasized his belief that Russia represents Europe much better than the EU countries, as it preserves its traditions and does not follow the culture of money and the masses. “Europe has become the servant and a sort of member state of the United States, and their economies are so intertwined that a U.S. bankruptcy would bring down Europe as well.” 78 Russia’s increasingly important role in Europe would hence be to counterbalance Americanization, and Hungary must decide within a few years whether to stay within the EU, join in a forming Eurasian Union that

188

Umut Korkut and Emel Akçali

would move away from Westernization and global capitalism, or try to remain independent. Finally, Vona also underlined that his Moscow visit was a major breakthrough as it had become clear to him that Russian leaders now consider Jobbik as a partner. What is the implication of this partnership for Hungary and Europe? As Jobbik is not in government in Hungary, it is hard to guess the immediate implications of the party becoming a strategic partner for Russia. However, as we argued above, Jobbik’s foreign policy stance resonates in the Fidesz foreign policy discourse in Hungary and affects Hungary’s relations with its neighbors. For example, Romanian media were swift to react to Vona’s meeting with Dugin in Moscow and to discuss the possible implications for Transylvania in light of the events in Ukraine, indicating that “Russia and Hungary [must have] agreed on the future of Transylvania as when Orbán asked for autonomy for his compatriots in Ukraine, following the similar Russian demands, he asked for all those beyond [the river] Tisza,” 79 which, according to the Romanian daily Evenimentul Zilei, referred to Transylvania as well. While this may be speculative, the ongoing allegations that Jobbik MEP Béla Kovács is a KGB 80 agent illustrates another possible implication of what Vona described as a partnership between Jobbik and Russia. Around the time of the May 2014 European parliamentary elections, there was extensive debate in the Hungarian liberal media around this issue, with speculation that Kovács’s wife could be a “KGB agent” as well. The position of Jobbik officials on this issue so far have been convoluted: party Vice-President Előd Novák suggested that if these allegations were true, Jobbik would not have been an accomplice but a victim. However, another Jobbik politician, Zoltán Lázár, argued, In case the allegation was true, Jobbik had nothing to be ashamed of as it is a party that rejects globalization, is Euroskeptic, illiberal, and a true voice of eastern opening for Hungary. Considering these, Russia does not appear frightening [to them] and if anyone spies against the EU all they would say is go ahead! 81

CONCLUSION This chapter elaborated on the development of Eurasianism in Hungary, from myths to political choices and policy realities. As we illustrated above, references to mythical identities enabled right-wing political actors in Hungary to narrate new ideals both in the interwar period and following the EU financial crisis of 2008. Furthermore, what started as a radical political option in the shape of Eurasianism affected the geopolitical choices of the conservative right government and created an affinity between radical-right formations and Russia. While the quest for new markets and energy alliances may ap-

Deciphering Eurasianism in Hungary

189

pear to be pragmatic choices of a government navigating its own domestic and international vulnerabilities, we underlined the historical legacy of identity formulations alternative to the West in the country in order to fully understand how EU-skeptical and EU-rejecting positions can develop into EU-alternate affiliations. Therefore, this chapter argued that the geopolitical practices that remain in the background of identity formations could enable novel political discourses resulting in new government policies. In this respect, primarily, we related our empirical debate to Budapest’s relations with Moscow and the increasing appeal of Putinism in the country both for the radical right and the conservative right. Recently, Hungarian-American philanthropist George Soros suggested that Russia is presenting an alternative that poses a fundamental challenge to the values and principles on which the European Union was originally founded. And this alternative has even proven itself in some ways superior to the EU. 82 Jobbik accepts Russia without compunction, as Gyöngyösi indicated that there is a geopolitical warfare whereby Russia is fighting the U.S., and Europe has no will and power of its own. Russia is a strong country and only with strength can one protect cultural traditions and push back liberal deviances. This is the ordinary peoples’ attitude and in Russia there is a renaissance of rationalist thinking. 83

This rhetoric can bandwagon the Hungarian government, as the recent emphasis on illiberal democracy in Orbán’s rhetoric illustrates. Thereby, we conclude that Eurasianist ideals have consolidated themselves in Hungary beyond the ranks of the radical right and have the potential to reach out to wider masses. NOTES 1. Ted Hopf, Social Construction of International Politics: Identities and Foreign Policies, Moscow 1955 and 1999 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2002), 3. 2. Ibid., 7. 3. Emel Akçalı and Umut Korkut, “Geographical Metanarratives in East-Central Europe: Neo-Turanism in Hungary,” Eurasian Geography and Economics 53 (2012): 596–614. 4. Wade Jacoby and Umut Korkut, “Hungary’s ‘Eastern Opening’ in Rhetoric and in Reality: Can Fidesz Use China to Lessen its Vulnerabilities?” (paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, DC, August 28–31, 2014). 5. “As the Hungarian swimmer, Dániel Gyurta, did after he won the gold medal at the Olympic competitions in London with his words that he swam for 15 million Hungarians.” László Tompo, Jr., “Nem lesz érdemi változás, amíg egyetemi tanárok nem értik, minek kellene tanítaniuk Wass Albertet és Nyirő Józsefet,” August 2, 2012, http://hunhir.info/index.php?pid=hirek&id=56221. 6. László Tompo, Jr. quotes Albert Wass as stating that “gain is the least gainful word that humanity invented.” See “A haszon a leghaszontalanabb szó, amit az ember valaha is kitalált,” June 21, 2012, http://hunhir.info/index.php?pid=hirek&id=54970.

190

Umut Korkut and Emel Akçali

7. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1991). 8. Shlomo Sand, The Invention of the Jewish People (London and New York: Verso, 2009), 32. 9. Margit Feischmidt et. al., Nemzet A Mindennapokban (Budapest: L’Harmattan, 2014) and Umut Korkut, “Evolving the Extreme into Ordinary: Cultural Legacies and the Identity Construction of the Hungarian Extreme Right” in The Identity Dilemma: Social Movements and Contested Identity, ed. Aidan McGarry and James Jasper (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2015). 10. John L. Campbell, “Institutional Analysis and the Role of Ideas in Political Economy,” Theory and Society 27 (1998): 383. 11. Michael Billig, Banal Nationalism (London: Sage, 1995). 12. Cynthia Enloe, Bananas, Beaches, and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics (London: Pandora Press, Harper/Collins, 1989). 13. Jennifer Hyndman, “Beyond Either/Or: A Feminist Analysis of September 11th,” ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies 2 (2003): 1. 14. Anna Secor, “Towards a Feminist Counter-Geopolitics: Gender, Space, and Islamist Politics in Istanbul,” Space and Polity 5 (2001): 191–211. 15. Mária Vásárhelyi, Csalóka Emlékezet A 20 század történelme a Magyar közgondolkodásban (Budapest: Kalligram, 2007). 16. Ibid., 31–32. 17. Jacqueline Rose, Proust among the Nations: From Dreyfus to the Middle East (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2011), 11. 18. Pierre Nora, Les lieux de mémoire, vol. 1, La République (Paris: Gallimard, 1984), xvii. 19. Thomas Lemke, “‘The Birth of Biopolitics’: Michel Foucault’s Lecture at the Collège De France on Neo-Liberal Governmentality,” Economy and Society 30 (2001): 190–207. 20. Alexandra Dobrowolsky and Jane Jenson, “Shifting Representations of Citizenship: Canadian Politics of ‘Women’ and ‘Children,’” Social Politics 11 (2004): 154–80. 21. Bruno Latour, Science in Action (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987). 22. Vando Borghi, “One-Way Europe? Institutional Guidelines, Emerging Regimes of Justification, and Paradoxical Turns in European Welfare Capitalism,” European Journal of Social Theory 14 (2011): 324. 23. Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello, The New Spirit of Capitalism (London: Verso, 2005). 24. Peter A. Hall, “Policy Paradigms, Social Learning, and the State: The Case of Economic Policymaking in Britain,” Comparative Politics 25 (1993): 275–96. 25. Akçalı and Korkut, “Geographical Metanarratives in East-Central Europe: Neo-Turanism in Hungary.” 26. Gergely Karácsony and Dániel Róna, “A Jobbik Titka. A szélsőjobb magyarországi megerősödésének lehetséges okáiról,” Politikatudományi Szemle 19 (2010), 36–37. 27. Sand, The Invention of the Jewish People: 27. 28. Ibid., 15, 39. 29. Tom Nairn, The Break-Up of Britain: Crisis and Neo-Nationalism (London: New Left Books, 1977), 340. 30. A.J. Ferreyra, “Family Myth and Homeostasis,” in Paradoxes et Contre-Paradoxes, ed. M. Selvini-Palazzoli and L. Boscolo (Paris: Ed. E.S.F., 1975), 82. 31. József Schmidt, “Turánizmus,” Nyugat 20 (1925), http://epa.oszk.hu/00000/00022/ 00382/11720.htm. 32. Nizam Önen, Turancı Hareketler: Macaristan ve Türkiye (1910–1944) (Ankara: Ankara University Press, 2013), 28–29. 33. Tarık Demirkan, Macar Turancıları (Istanbul: Türkiye Ekonomik ve Toplumsal Tarih Vakfi, 2000), 26. 34. A. Turáni Tarsaság Alapszabályai (1910). 35. Balázs Ablonczy, Teleki Pál (Budapest: Osiris Kiado, 2005). 36. Önen, Turancı Hareketler, 31–32. 37. Ali Engin Oba, Türk Milliyetçiliğinin Doğuşu (Ankara: Imge Kitabevi, 1995), 13. 38. Ablonczy, Teleki Pál.

Deciphering Eurasianism in Hungary

191

39. Miklós Gömbös, Turáni Kérdés (Bonyhád: At Raubitschek Izór, 1922). 40. Alajos Paikert, Turáni Mult, Turáni Jövő (Különlenyomat a Turán, 1931), 3–7. 41. Ármin Vámbéry, A Magyarság Keletkezése es Gyarapodása (Budapest: Franklin-Tarsulat, 1895). 42. János Gyurgyák, Magyar Fajvedők (Budapest: Osiris, 2012). 43. Ablonczy, Teleki Pál, 90. 44. László Szendrei, A Turanizmus (Gödöllő: Attraktor, 2010), 17. 45. Gömbös, Turáni Kérdés, 9. 46. Paul A. Hanebrink, In Defense of Christian Hungary: Religion, Nationalism, and Antisemitism, 1890–1944 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2009), 118. 47. “A Magyar Turáni Szövetség céljai és tevékenysége,” Turán VIII (1921): 74. 48. Szendrei, A Turanizmus, 29. 49. Demirkan, Macar Turancıları, 58. 50. “Stratégiai fordulat Kelet felé Part I,” accessed October 25, 2014, http://alfahir.hu/node/ 45595. 51. Emel Akçalı, “The Public Portrayal of Turkey in Visegrad Countries: The Case of Hungary” (2013), 49, available at http://edam.org.tr/eng/document/Visegrad%20Report %20January%202013.pdf. 52. Stratégiai fordulat Kelet felé Part II, October 25, 2014, http://alfahir.hu/node/44126. 53. Stratégiai fordulat Kelet felé Part III, October 25, 2014, http://alfahir.hu/node/46661. 54. Authors’ interviews with Marton Gyöngyösi and Tamas Hegedűs on September 26, 2014, in Budapest. 55. Gábor Vona, “Turanism Instead of Euro-Atlantic Alliance,” accessed April 10, 2011, http://www.jobbik.com/jobbik_news/europe/3198.html. 56. Ibid. 57. Krisztian Ungváry, “Turanism: The ‘New’ Ideology of the Far Right,” Budapest Times, February 5, 2012. 58. Szentkoron Radio. Accessed March 21, 2012, http://szentkoronaradio.com/send/send/ 124711. 59. “Irán és Magyarország közös jövő előtt áll,” accessed March 21, 2012, http://barikad.hu/ iran_es_magyarorszag_koezoes_joevo_elott_all-20111012. 60. Interview with Attila Juhász, “A Fidesz folyamatosan veszítve nyer,” Magyar Narancs, October 16, 2014. 61. Authors’ interview with Márton Gyöngyösi, September 26, 2014, Budapest. 62. Authors’ interview. 63. Orbán’s speech delivered on November 5, 2010, accessed January 21, 2014, http:// index.hu/belfold/2010/11/05/orban_keleti_szel_fuj/d. 64. Orbán’s speech delivered at Tusványos Summer School 2014, Tusnádfürdő on July 28, 2014, accessed August 8, 2014, http://mandiner.hu/cikk/20140728_orban_viktor_a_munka alapu_allam_korszaka_kovetkezik_beszed_tusvanyos_2014. 65. Orbán’s speech delivered at Tusványos Summer School. 66. György Szretykó, “Az Európai Unió Válsága és a Keleti Nyitás Lehetőségei” (2013), http://kgk.sze.hu/images/dokumentumok/kautzkiadvany2013/makropenzugy/szretyko.pdf. 67. Tamás Sárközy, “A ‘vezérdemokracia’ kormányazásanak jellemzői,” Mozgó Világ 9 (2013); Péter Tölgyessey, “A Fidesz és a Magyar Politika lehetséges új iránya” in Van Irány Trendek a Magyar Politkában?, ed. Zsolt Boda and András Körösényi (Budapest: ÚMK, 2012). 68. Szretykó, “Az Európai Unió Válsága és a Keleti Nyitás Lehetőségei.” 69. Ibid. 70. Boris Kálnoky, “Hungary’s ‘Opening to the East’ and Turkey,” Hungarian Review 4 (2013): 30 71. Akçalı and Korkut, “Geographical Metanarratives in East-Central Europe: Neo-Turanism in Hungary.” 72. Ervin Csizmadia et al., “A Magyar jobboldal természetrajza. Miéert olyan a Fidesz, amilyen, és lehetne-e más?” Élet és Irodalom, May 17, 2013, 8.

192

Umut Korkut and Emel Akçali

73. Akçalı and Korkut, “Geographical Metanarratives in East-Central Europe: Neo-Turanism in Hungary.” 74. “Putyin horgán az ország,” Magyar Narancs, January 23, 2014, 3. 75. Hungary Suspends Gas Supplies to Ukraine, BBC, September 26, 2014, http:// www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-29374151. 76. Az I. Orbán-kormány Oroszország-politikája, November 15, 2010, http://russianbear.blog.hu/2010/11/15/az_i_orban_kormany_oroszorszag_politikaja_iii_resz. 77. Orsolya Fülöp, “Illékony anyagiak,” Magyar Narancs, August 21, 2014, 18–19. 78. The details of Vona’s lecture are available at Jobbik’s official website: http:// www.jobbik.com/gábor_vona_had_lecture_lomonosov_university_russia. 79. Oroszország és Magyarország megegyeznek Erdélyről, May 17, 2014, accessed December 12, 2014, https://eurocom.wordpress.com/2014/05/17/oroszorszag-es-magyarorszag-megegyeznek-erdelyrol-evenimentul-zilei/. 80. Even though the KGB has been renamed the FSB (Federal Security Service), the newspapers continue to use the Soviet-era acronym. 81. “Kihátrál Kovács Béla mögül a Jobbik?” September 25, 2014, accessed December 12, 2014, http://index.hu/belfold/2014/09/25/kihatral_kovacs_bela_mogul_a_jobbik/. 82. George Soros, “Wake Up, Europe,” New York Review of Books, November 20, 2014, 6. 83. Authors’ interview.

Chapter Nine

The Dawning of Europe and Eurasia? The Greek Golden Dawn and Its Transnational Links Sofia Tipaldou

The 2014 European Parliament election confirmed that Golden Dawn is the third-largest political force in Greece. Just a few days earlier, Golden Dawn had fared fifth in the Greek local elections, with its spokesperson, Ilias Kasidiaris, receiving 16.12 percent of the vote in the municipality of Athens 1 and Ilias Panagiotaros, already a member of parliament, scoring 11.3 percent in Greece’s biggest region, Attica. 2 By that point, many of Golden Dawn’s MPs, including Kasidiaris and Panagiotaros, and rank-and-file members were either held in custody or released with a restraining order pending trial for charges that read like an encyclopedia of the Greek penal code: running a criminal organization, homicide, gun possession, hate crimes, robbery, and tax evasion, among others. 3 The criminal investigation and subsequent arrests followed the assassination of musician Pavlos Fyssas in September 2013. That crackdown triggered an outpouring of support from Golden Dawn sympathizers around the world, who expressed their solidarity with the Greek “political prisoners.” On November 1, 2013, a drive-by shooting outside Golden Dawn’s regional office in Neo Irakleio left Manolis Kapelonis and Giorgos Fountoulis dead and Alexandros Gerontas gravely injured. 4 An even bigger wave of international solidarity followed, accompanied by protests in front of Greek embassies, improvised requiems, and other staged events, as well as widespread publication of photos and videos taken during these events. The widespread support for Golden Dawn confirms the existence of an international far-right network. Experts on the Golden Dawn movement have pointed out its efforts to lead a “Brown International” since it maintains links with like-minded groups from Germany, Italy, France, Romania, Poland, Spain, Canada, Aus193

194

Sofia Tipaldou

tralia, and the United States. 5 Other xenophobic, anti-immigration, revanchist, and anti-Semitic far-right parties have scored electoral victories in other European countries, including the National Front in France, Jobbik in Hungary, the Freedom Party of Austria (Freiheitliche Partei Össterreichs), and the National Democratic Party of Germany (Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands—NPD) in Germany. This chapter investigates Golden Dawn in both Greece and Cyprus and the scope of its collaboration with other far-right formations from Western Europe to Russia. Using primary resources from the websites of Golden Dawn and other far-right organizations, investigative journalism articles from the Greek press, and secondary works from Greek and international scholars, it unveils international links that can vary from simple information sharing to joint strategies and personnel exchanges. This network of connections may partly explain the simultaneous success of far-right parties in recent years. The present research on the Golden Dawn’s international network would be impossible to carry out without the rich materials gathered by the Ios journalists’ collective, especially by Dimitris Psarras, 6 as well as the nonprofit monitoring group XYZContagion and the nonprofit organization Lawyers’ Initiative for the Political Proceedings of the Antifascist Movement “JailGoldenDawn.” GOLDEN DAWN IDEOLOGY: CHANGES AND CONTINUITIES Golden Dawn has been characterized as one of the “most extreme political formations in Europe.” 7 However, locating Golden Dawn on the political spectrum can be complicated, because the organization has undergone a significant transformation over the years. Scholars agree on Golden Dawn’s national-socialist profile, its resemblance to totalitarian regimes in terms of organization and aesthetics, the prevailing role of the leader (Führerprinzip), and the existence of related paramilitary structures. Golden Dawn’s core ideology is ultra-nationalism, xenophobia, nativism, cultural and biological racism, irredentism, and authoritarianism. Its declared enemies are immigrants, communists, Zionists, globalization, and the European Union (EU). Its agenda is driven by ethnic nationalist demands such as the expulsion of illegal immigrants and the exclusion of non-Greeks from national politics, and it condones the use of violence to accomplish its goals. 8 The leader of Golden Dawn is Nikolaos Michaloliakos. His political trajectory begins with his membership in the August 4th Party (Komma Tetartis Avgoustou—K4A) of Kostantinos Plevris, named after the military regime of Ioannis Metaxas that started in 1936 and lasted until the country’s occupation by German troops in 1941. Kostantinos Plevris is a “self-proclaimed national-socialist and fervent Hitler admirer,” who is considered the “mentor” of

The Dawning of Europe and Eurasia?

195

contemporary far-right radicals. 9 He openly supported the military coup of Georgios Papadopoulos, 10 and his was the only party allowed during the Papadopoulos dictatorship (1967–1974). According to Plevris: From K4A many youngsters made their own organizations until they became disappointed. Anyway, K4A was the womb that gave birth to the following nationalist movements and above all educated the young on nationalist ideology, taught them what democracy means, what communism means. 11

K4A was dissolved in 1977, but its influence remains. 12 In December 1980, a group of people steeped in the K4A milieu, including Nikolaos Michaloliakos, published the first issue of the eponymous Chrysi Avgi (Golden Dawn) magazine. 13 The first articles left no doubt about the group’s ideological orientation. The magazine sometimes carried the subtitle “National-Socialist Periodical Publication” and is usually full of National Socialist symbols, like the swastika—often tangled among various mystical images—and the horizontally aligned Wolfsangel symbol that was the organization’s early emblem. The covers of Chrysi Avgi frequently bore dedications to Adolf Hitler (e.g., issue 26, May 1987, and issue 44, April 1989) and to his close collaborators, like Rudolf Hess (issue 16, September 1987), as well as to Greek collaborators of the Nazi regime, like the first Greek prime minister appointed by the Axis occupation authorities in 1941, Georgios Tsolakoglou (issue 39, October 1988). 14 Other covers presented a Waffen-SS soldier in front of the Nazi flag, 15 a Hitler Youth trumpeter holding a swastika flag and wearing an armband in front of the German Imperial Eagle, 16 and the Imperial Eagle atop a swastika monument with Hitler’s signature at the bottom. 17 Inside, the articles touted Hitler and distinguished NSDAP leaders like Nazi ideologue Alfred Rosenberg; Léon Degrelle, a Belgian general in the Waffen SS; and judge Roland Freisler. 18 At the same time, the organization also published books that promoted National Socialism, starting with a Greek translation of Hitler’s 1942 speech in Sportpalast Berlin. 19 One unsigned 1981 article in Chrysi Avgi leaves no room for doubt: We are pagans . . . because we are Greeks, because it is impossible for us to accept other values than those that stem from the miracle of the Greek Spirit. . . . We are Nazi if this term does not annoy you (it does annoy us), because in the miracle of the 1933 German Revolution, we saw the Strength that will rescue the mankind from the Jewish rot. . . . We are anarchists because we are uncompromising and fanatics . . . and we will be until the moment that the Dawn of the National-Socialist Power will dominate. . . . We are extremists because we learned to love and hate without measure, deeply and eternally. 20

Golden Dawn concentrated on disseminating Nazi propaganda until 1984, when the imprisoned former dictator Georgios Papadopoulos appointed

196

Sofia Tipaldou

Michaloliakos to head the youth wing of his National Political Union (Ethniki Politiki Enosis—EPEN). Michaloliakos had met the former dictator while serving time in prison for participating in the so-called bomb attacks of 1977–1978. 21 Other party members also have ties to Papadopoulos. Michaloliakos’s brother, Panagiotis “Michalolias” Michaloliakos, was EPEN’s cofounder in 1983. Christos Pappas, the deputy head of Golden Dawn since its creation and its current parliamentary spokesman, is the son of Ilias Pappas, a close collaborator of the former dictator and a former member of the dictatorship’s “revolutionary committee.” 22 One year before his conviction, Nikolaos Michaloliakos was arrested on separate charges of beating eleven journalists covering the funeral of Evaggelos Mallios, a policeman assassinated by the Revolutionary Organization “17 November.” Mallios was infamous for carrying out torture on behalf of the dictatorship, and the journalists were considered hostile toward a rightwing extremists democratic regime. 23 These two arrests probably made Michaloliakos famous within Greek far-right circles at the time, although his organization had fewer than one hundred members and was thus not considered influential. Furthermore, at the time his group was the only one on the far-right scene (estimated to have about fifteen organizations in total) that openly espoused Nazi theories, and it was struggling to build international contacts, starting with the Spanish group CEDADE (see below). 24 Nevertheless, Michaloliakos did not head EPEN’s youth wing for long; he resigned after only a few months, in January 1985, and started reorganizing Golden Dawn. 25 In 1987 the organization composed its “secret statute,” a confidential document that describes in detail its principles, organizational structure, and objectives. 26 The document begins with a historical retrospective of the organization. It explains that a group of young people formed the Association for Research on and Promotion of the European Cultural Creation “Golden Dawn” (also called the “Circle of Golden Dawn”) after a decade of continuous “ideological reflection and research of the historical sources.” It then proceeded to “a revolutionary inspection of our historical evolution and to the role of the dominant system,” in order to reveal to Greek society “the true character of the national-socialist way of life” with its eponymous journal (they had published thirteen issues at the time). It also explains that the group had been obliged to postpone its activities for tactical reasons in 1984, but that from that moment on it would start the “second and final circle of its action.” 27 Other handwritten documents found in the home of Christos Pappas after his arrest detail the three-level hierarchical structure of the organization. On the lowest level are the “Popular Association” political department and the magazine Chrysi Avgi; both are further divided into specialized sub-departments. Level two contains the political council, comprised of the “movement for the study of the European cultural creation,” a kind of think tank respon-

The Dawning of Europe and Eurasia?

197

sible for the organization’s “world-theory and bio-theory” that produces national-socialist publications. On level one stands the “induction group” called Golden Lodge, which is the organization’s central council and has its own internal hierarchy. 28 Above all these, according to the secret statute, stands the leader: We, Greek national-socialists of Golden Dawn arousing our responsibility and our duty above the common measure, remain supremely FAITHFUL to the only imperishable and indestructible from the decay of our times Principle, the Principle of the Leader. 29

Another document, the “Inner Code,” establishes the Roman salute— similar to the Nazi salute—as an obligation of each member when arriving and exiting the organizations’ offices and gives many details on the appropriate dress code for members both inside and outside the offices. There are numerous pictures showing the leader, party MPs, and members, doing the Roman salute—which, at some point, the organization started claiming is actually an ancient Greek salute. Nikolaos Michaloliakos did not hesitate to do a Roman salute when meeting with the mayor of Athens. 30 Many Golden Dawn members bear tattoos that reveal their beliefs. For example, party spokesperson and MP Ilias Kasidiaris has a swastika on his upper arm and MP Panagiotis Iliopoulos has the words “Sieg Heil” next to Golden Dawn’s symbol, the meander, on his inner arm. At the same time, Golden Dawn—like other Nazi-style formations—has been constructing a “secret army,” calculated at around three thousand people by the time its leadership was arrested in late 2013. As the government investigation got underway, many new clues emerged, including more evidence of secret military training. Evidence shows that Golden Dawn members have guns and military equipment, that they undergo “special training,” and that they resemble the youth section of former dictator’s Ioannis Metaxas National Youth Organization (Ethniki Organosi Neolaias—EON) of 1936. They also have assault units that function like urban guerrillas and are used on “special occasions,” for example, when the organization wants to exact revenge either because a national Greek was allegedly victimized by immigrants or to punish their own members for not complying with party rules. 31 The police found unregistered machine guns and illegal munitions of all kinds in the homes of the arrested Golden Dawn MPs, including handguns, automatic weapons, rifles, tasers, and brass knuckles. 32 Additionally, between June 2012 and the end of 2013, at least twenty-eight cases related to illegal weapons possession were opened against Golden Dawn members, and there are numerous photos circulating on the Internet of high-ranking members posing with various machine guns, evidence confirming that gun posses-

198

Sofia Tipaldou

sion and gun use are “basic identity components” of Golden Dawn membership. 33 Former member Ilias Stavrou, Golden Dawn’s candidate for both 2012 elections and active in the organization’s propaganda department, testified voluntarily before the investigating committee. In his declaration, he stated: Golden Dawn strives for the dominance of the ideas and principles of a National Socialist state with mid-war Germany being its reference point as a state model. The final objective is the creation of a one-party regime in which state and party will be one and the former will be under the command of the latter. This regime would prevail with the propagation and the dissemination of the party’s principles in society and with its penetration as far as possible in state institutions, that is, the police and the army. 34

In the early 1990s, Golden Dawn made two course adjustments. First, as part of its effort to enter mainstream politics, it moderated its discourse, leaving behind the term “National Socialism” and replacing it with the more moderate terms “patriotism” and “nationalism.” Second, it moved away from its pagan beliefs 35 and began to include Orthodox Christianity, promoting the idea of a unique “Greek Christianity.” 36 One indicator of this change was the 1992 publication of the book Megali Ellada se mia Eleftheri Evropi (Toward a Big Greece in a Free Europe), by the party’s leader, which did not contain even one mention of the term “National Socialism” and replaced old Nazi symbols with new ones like the sun, the sword, and the laurel. 37 The party’s anti-system, anti-Semitic, and anti-communist rhetoric, nevertheless, remains. Golden Dawn’s critique focuses on the “dictatorship of parliamentarianism,” “corrupt politicians,” “international Zionism,” and multinationals. 38 This rhetorical turn is also evident in the party’s most recent (1997) manifesto, where the term nationalism is used in place of National Socialism, for example, when it calls for taking power through a “revolution” and creating a “popular nationalist state.” However, this does not mean that Golden Dawn has abandoned its farright ideology. The manifesto still makes references to the principles of National Socialism and draws on the works of Greek and other advocates of Nazism and Fascism, e.g., Ion Dragoumis, Periklis Giannopoulos, Panagiotis Kondilis, Ioannis Metaxas, Julius Evola, Antonio Primo de Rivera, Karl Haushofer, and Adolf Hitler. 39 Writing in 2000, Michaloliakos declared, “We do not take back not even one word from what we have written and stood for, it is just that today we consider this term [nationalism] as the most reliable and politically adequate.” 40 Six years later, the party magazine repeated this point: The fact that we are now using the terms nationalism, people’s nationalism, social nationalism does not mean that we changed our minds. We just consider

The Dawning of Europe and Eurasia?

199

more rational politically to use these terms, because it is a fact that the term “National Socialism” causes confusion after a propaganda ocean of sixty long years. 41

Perhaps to emphasize that point, the magazine still dedicates covers to the NSDAP leadership, including Hitler (issue 132, May/June 2007) and Rudolf Hess (July 2006). Under the facade of Greek nationalism, Golden Dawn won a city council seat in the 2010 local elections, with Nikos Michaloliakos gaining 5.26 percent of the vote in the municipality of Athens. 42 Prior to the 2010 elections, the Greek media had portrayed migration as a social threat, and the government emphasized security concerns in its migration policy. 43 At the same time, just half a year earlier, Greece had accepted a bailout loan from the EU and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in order to combat its domestic economic problems; the loans required the introduction of a series of unpopular measures. The austerity policy, imposed atop an economy already in collapse, triggered a massive protest wave and resulted in a political crisis. 44 In the two-part legislative elections of May and June 2012, Golden Dawn scored impressive numbers, placing fifth with 6.92 percent of the vote (up from the marginal 0.29 percent in the 2009 legislative elections) and winning eighteen of the three hundred seats in parliament. 45 At the same time, Golden Dawn began spreading all over Greece. By 2014 it had branches in sixty cities and all thirteen administrative regions of Greece. 46 CONSOLIDATING GOLDEN DAWN’S INTERNATIONAL NETWORKS As Golden Dawn grows in popularity at home, the organization has strived to spread its influence abroad. These efforts can be divided into two waves. In the mid-1980s, the movement was limited and marginal, with scant economic resources and media coverage. At this point, Golden Dawn sought out likeminded organizations abroad and analyzed their successes and failures. Until the beginning of the 2000s, Greek far-right groups were mostly influenced by successful Northern European like-minded organizations and their respective leaders, like Jean-Marie Le Pen in France, Gianfranco Fini in Italy, Jörg Haider in Austria, Pim Fortuyn in the Netherlands, and Franz Schönhuber in Germany. 47 Through the years, the many far-right movements in Europe have changed their content, strategies, and international ties. Some of them disappear, while others grow into parties and manage to enter their national or the European Parliament. One striking example is the French National Front that, while gaining electoral ground, moderated its discourse significantly, especially after Marine Le Pen succeeded her father and stated that she would not

200

Sofia Tipaldou

cooperate with Golden Dawn and similar organizations in the European Parliament, despite past alliances. 48 Today, collaboration is greatly facilitated through the Internet and new communication technologies that enable far-right organizations to have instant, direct contact with others around the globe. Far-right groups build transnational virtual forums and closed platforms that have a double function. First, they create alternatives to traditional mass media that can circulate far-right ideology and rapidly mobilize followers for protest events. Second, they facilitate a subculture that revolves around two basic elements, music and football, and that is particularly useful for recruiting new members. 49 Nevertheless, Internet activity does not necessarily transform into action. While some organizations may provide links to others on their websites, it does not necessarily indicate active cooperation in the form of joint initiatives, cosponsored public events, and information sharing. CEDADE Connections to Neo-Nazi Europe Before it began establishing branch organizations, Golden Dawn tried to expand its network in other ways. The first effort began in 1981 and targeted the neo-Nazi Spanish Circle of Europe’s Friends (Circulo Español de Amigos de Europa—CEDADE). Founded in Spain in 1966, CEDADE inspired Golden Dawn in its initial incarnation as a philosophical society based on the classics of National Socialism, e.g., Hitler, Rosenberg, and Evola. CEDADE’s members were trained by Franco’s secret Central Documentation Service, and after Franco’s death the group took advantage of the political liberalization that allowed for printing openly Nazi propaganda. Soon CEDADE became the center of the European far-right movement. 50 Its top leadership included the Belgian Waffen SS general Léon Degrelle, one of many high-ranking Nazis who found refuge in Franco’s Spain at the end of World War II. CEDADE also hosted the annual meetings of the European alliance of far-right forces, the New European Order (Nouvel Ordre Européen). 51 During the fourteenth meeting of the New European Order, in April 1979, far-right organizations from Germany, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Canada, Argentina, South Africa, and Switzerland signed the “Barcelona Declaration.” The declaration reflects the National Socialist and white supremacist ideology of its authors and even refers to the use of eugenics for the “White people’s salvation.” Golden Dawn joined the New European Order in 1981, signed the Barcelona Declaration, and published the complete text in one of the first issues of its magazine (issue 4, 1981) with the title “New European Order” and an SS soldier with two swastikas on the cover. 52 In 1983, Golden Dawn again referenced the Barcelona Declaration and the New European Order and featured an article that detailed CEDADE’s ideological goals.

The Dawning of Europe and Eurasia?

201

Golden Dawn also adopted in some publications CEDADE’s symbol, a Naziinspired eagle over a yoke. 53 Golden Dawn also shares common characteristics with GRECE, the epicenter of the French—and later the European—New Right. 54 Golden Dawn was heavily influenced by GRECE’s claim to be a circle of intellectuals and constructed its own brand based on GRECE’s principle of defending European civilization from Marxism, liberalism, egalitarianism, and Christianity. 55 In April 1990, Christos Pappas and Panagiotis Zouboulis interviewed General Degrelle in Spain. Their conversation was later published twice in Chrysi Avgi as well as in a special publication on Degrelle. 56 Golden Dawn established contacts also with the racist South African Afrikaner’s Resistance Movement (Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging—AWB), which sent a representative to the second Golden Dawn conference in 1992. In return, Golden Dawn sent a representative to AWB’s 1992 conference. 57 Soon after, Michaloliakos met Jean-Marie Le Pen in Athens in 1993. In 1994, Golden Dawn came in contact with the neo-Nazi French and European Nationalist Party (Parti Nationaliste Français et Européen—PNFE), based in France, and through this contact, it managed to have its magazine on sale during a National Front festival. Golden Dawn also reached out to the Italian far right. It created a cell among Greek students in Italy under the leadership of Dimitrios Zafeiropoulos. Chrysi Avgi subsequently published articles about the Greek neo-Nazi Mikis Mantakas, who was murdered by leftists in Rome in 1975. Later, Greek Golden Dawn members organized trips to Rome, the “capital of European nationalism.” Since 2000 Italian visitors have attended Golden Dawn’s summer camps in Greece and the annual Imia march to commemorate the death of three Greek officers during the conflict with Turkey. 58 By the end of the 2000s, contacts between the Greek and its Italian counterparts had become considerable. For instance, in 2010 Michaloliakos helped organize an international far-right meeting in Italy together with representatives of Forza Nuova from Italy, Jobbik from Hungary, and the British National Party; he made a Roman salute in public when addressing the crowd. 59 In November 2013, the neo-fascist Italian organization Casa Pound 60 hosted a meeting with Golden Dawn at its Rome headquarters 61 and in March 2014, Golden Dawn met with the Italian Forza Nuova, German NPD, British BNP, and Spanish Democracia Nacional in Rome. 62 International Outposts and the Cypriot ELAM After its electoral success in 2012, Golden Dawn opened branches abroad. Their role is significant because, apart from raising public visibility and helping recruitment, they also increase the chances of expanding Golden Dawn’s international network. As of early 2015, there were Golden Dawn

202

Sofia Tipaldou

cells in the United States (New York and Los Angeles), Canada (Montreal), and Australia (Melbourne). 63 In Europe, the first non-Greek cell reportedly opened in Nuremberg, Germany, in late 2012, probably because of the city’s symbolic significance in the neo-Nazi scene. On January 7, 2013, the newly formed cell organized the first European Golden Dawn conference. 64 The Greek movement officially denied knowledge of it and stated that they have “no connection with foreign political organizations or parties. . . . Cells of Golden Dawn are getting organized in every corner of the planet, not only in Germany, but wherever there is a Greek diaspora.” 65 In Cyprus, Golden Dawn seems to have entered into a coalition with the Cypriot National People’s Front (Ethniko Laiko Metopo—ELAM), which formed in 2008. ELAM espouses the National Socialist ideology—similar to Golden Dawn—and has organized demonstrations against Turkish Cypriots and carried out pogroms against immigrants. Its political strength is still marginal, however, having won only 1.08 percent in the parliamentary elections of 2011. The fact that Golden Dawn did not open a branch in Cyprus and that it hosts a link to ELAM in a prominent location on its website where it describes its ideology and functioning shows that they are sister organizations and that there is a geographical division of labor between the two. 66 Representatives of both organizations regularly meet and sometimes even participate in each other’s public actions. 67 Russian Nationalists as Key Allies Golden Dawn also managed to enter Russia. In 1996, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, leader of the Liberal-Democratic Party of Russia, invited Golden Dawn to represent Greece in a new nationalist front, Patrintern. 68 Two high-ranking members, including Michaloliakos, joined Patrintern’s founding conference along with representatives from Austria, Belarus, Germany, Hungary, Serbia, and Ukraine. Golden Dawn has always supported Zhirinovksy through its magazine articles, and its members may have also copied Zhirinovsky’s badboy image. During the 1995 Russian parliamentary election campaign, Zhirinovsky threw a glass of orange juice at his co-panelist Boris Nemtsov, a fact that was reported with great enthusiasm in Chrysi Avgi. In 1998, Michaloliakos similarly threw an object at a fellow participant during a television show and then stomped out of the studio. In 2012, Golden Dawn’s spokesperson and MP Ilias Kasidiaris hurled a glass of water at his co-panelists and then slapped Communist Party MP Liana Kaneli in the face. 69 In addition to Zhirinovsky, Golden Dawn developed contacts with the farright Movement Against Illegal Immigration (Dvizhenie protiv nelegal’noi immigratsii—DPNI). In September 2008, the DPNI and American white supremacist Preston Wiginton 70 organized the first international forum of nationalist organizations opposed to illegal immigration held in Moscow.

The Dawning of Europe and Eurasia?

203

Participants included the DPNI with Alexander Belov and the Slavic Union from the Russian side, Golden Dawn with its representative George Dimitroulias, and NPD with Jens Puehse. The event was posted to YouTube by the DPNI’s online TV channel. 71 Since Golden Dawn won seats in the Greek parliament, it has been enthusiastically pro-Russia. For example, its magazine’s 2012 cover article, by Ilias Kasidiaris, was “Turn to Russia: Change of Geostrategic Orientation toward the only Reachable Solution for the Country [Greece] to be Absolved from the Loan Sharks’ Bonds.” Addressing parliament on October 22, 2012, Kasidiaris called for the Russian army to enter Greece to protect Russian oil pipes transiting the country. Through its magazine, Golden Dawn argues that Russians see in their organization a Greek political force with a national orientation that strives to protect the rights of the Greek people and their Greek homeland, which upsets the local servants of U.S. Zionism. 72 Kasidiaris also stated that Greece would immediately ally with Russia if Golden Dawn won the election in 2014. 73 At the same time, Russian media report more frequently on Golden Dawn. The Voice of Russia published an interview with Nikolaos Michaloliakos in 2013, in which he stated that there is a “natural alliance” between Greece, a “sea power,” and Russia, a “land power.” The Voice of Russia reported that “legal actions against the radical Golden Dawn and the arrests of its leaders may have played a role in the radicalization of reservists in the army.” 74 Russia Today published an interview with Ilias Kasidiaris in which he stated that, in the fight for a Europe of nations, Russia will lead and that Orthodox Russia is the first ally of Greece. 75 An accompanying video showed a Golden Dawn demonstration in Piraeus, Athens, with its members chanting the slogan “Greece belongs to Greeks.” 76 Kasidiaris also spoke with the financial newspaper RosBiznesKonsalting (RBK) in November 2013 where he stated that the solution to the Greek economic problems is a radical revision of the institutions of European integration. RBK presented him as “one of the most popular candidates for mayor of Athens” and Golden Dawn as “one of the leading political forces in Greece.” 77 Since being imprisoned, Michaloliakos has received letters from Alexander Dugin, the leading Russian proponent of neo-Eurasianism. 78 In the letter, according to the Golden Dawn website, Dugin favorably appraised the geopolitical doctrine of Golden Dawn and asked for closer relations between the party and his Moscow-based institutions. 79 At that time, Nikolaos Michaloliakos published the article “Crimea, Muscovites, and Greece,” where he argues that the Ukrainian crisis was set up by the United States and its allies in order to damage Moscow’s relationship with Europe and to block Russia from the geopolitical expansion expressed through Dugin’s theory. Michaloliakos also wrote that the Ukrainian far-right organization Right Sector is a provocateur organization that has nothing to do with neo-Nazism, since it

204

Sofia Tipaldou

made a pact with Caucasian Islamists to help them in combat and since the Right Sector’s leaders assured Israel’s ambassador that the Jews in Ukraine have nothing to worry about. He concluded that it is in the Greek national interest for Crimea to be controlled by the Russians because Russia can rebuff Turkey’s expansionism. 80 In November 2013, Golden Dawn MP Artemis Matthaiopulos attended a conference in Moscow organized by the Orthodox newspaper Russkii vestnik on the topic “Protection of Traditional Values in Europe.” Nick Griffin of BNP and Roberto Fiore of Forza Nuova also participated. Matthaiopoulos closed his speech by underlining that Russia is Greece’s “natural ally” with whom it can collaborate in the diplomatic, military, and economic spheres to pursue their common national interests. 81 In May 2014, Matthaiopoulos visited Moscow again, this time accompanied by Michaloliakos’s wife and Golden Dawn MP, Eleni Zaroulia. The party website published a photo of Matthaiopoulos with Dugin along with excerpts from their conversation, emphasizing Dugin’s statement that Golden Dawn is the natural ally of Russia, since both oppose U.S. expansionary policy and that the political persecution of its leadership is happening because Golden Dawn openly talks about a geopolitical turn toward Russia. 82 Finally, in October 2014, Golden Dawn was invited to take part in the Russian National Forum in Saint Petersburg, organized by the Intelligent Design Bureau. The head of the Intelligent Design Bureau is the leader of ultranationalist party Rodina in St. Petersburg, Andrei Petrov. In addition to Golden Dawn, the invitees included Jobbik, the Austrian Party of Freedom, the Swiss People’s Party, the English Democratic Party, the Scottish National Party, the French ethno-regionalist movement Bloc Identitaire, the French National Front, the Serbian Radical Party, and Forza Nuova. Russian political figures in attendance included Dugin; Zhirinovsky; Gennadii Ziuganov, head of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation; Mikhail Leontyev, publisher of the weekly magazine Odnako; Alexander Prokhanov, editor-inchief of Zavtra; and Eduard Limonov, co-founder (with Dugin) of the banned National Bolshevik Party (NBP). 83 Golden Dawn also developed contacts with Ukrainian nationalists. The Cypriot ELAM hosted in June 2013 two Svoboda representatives, Andriy Mishchenko and Yuri Levchenko, and organized an event to honor them. The leaders of both Golden Dawn and ELAM admit publicly that they have strong bonds with Svoboda because of their common ideology. 84 Also, Giorgos Dimitroulias, a candidate at the local elections of 2014 with Golden Dawn’s formation Greek Action (Elliniki Drasi) in Kalamata, went to the NPD-Saarland summer school in 2013, where he met Svoboda representatives. After that, Greek Action hosted members of NPD, Svoboda, and Casa Pound in Kalamata. Dimitroulias maintained contacts with Nick Griffin, the NPD, and the Swedish Party of the Swedes (Svenskarnas Parti—SVP). 85

The Dawning of Europe and Eurasia?

205

Golden Dawn’s Growing Foreign Network In October 1998, Golden Dawn sponsored the Fifth World Conference of nationalist youth. About 150 persons participated, representing the United States, Germany, Netherlands, Denmark, Switzerland, Portugal, Romania, and South Africa. The U.S. delegation was comprised of William Pierce, leader of the racist organization National Alliance and author of The Turner Diaries. Another distinguished guest was the founder of Red Army Fraction (Rote Armee Fraktion—RAF), Horst Mahler, who later became a member of the NPD. The conference was not publicized. Four days after it had concluded, information about the gathering was released to the Greek press and caused a political scandal, with the Greek authorities condemned for their apparent passivity toward an international far-right gathering on their territory. 86 The next international event that Golden Dawn tried to organize was the September 2005 European “Hatewave Festival.” The festival, complete with speeches and concerts, was supposed to be the “biggest White Power event” ever held in Greece, but Golden Dawn curiously never published the exact location where it would be held. Ultimately, the festival was cancelled, and only a small group of Greek supporters and a few foreigners met outside Golden Dawn’s offices. This was not the first time that Golden Dawn organized summer camps or festivals to attract youth, but it was the first time that the representatives of the European National Front, an initiative of the Italian Forza Nuova, met in Greece. The European National Front is a “coordinating platform for European far right parties,” mainly marginal ones. Its exact founding date is unclear (sources variously list 1999, 2004, or 2005). 87 It claims to have members from across Europe. 88 Golden Dawn participated in the European National Front with a short-lived formation under its total control, the Patriotic Alliance (Patriotiki Symmachia), led by Dimitrios Zafiropoulos. Nikolaos Michaloliakos was a member of the Alliance’s central committee. In 2008, Golden Dawn took the lead of the European National Front and organized a conference in Athens attended by representatives from the German NPD, the Romanian New Right (Noua Dreapta), and guests from France and Latvia. 89 Golden Dawn was still part of the European National Front platform as recently as 2012, when its seventh Pan-European congress was held in Madrid. 90 Golden Dawn has also developed strong links to like-minded German groups: the NPD; the neo-Nazi Free Network South (Freies Netz Süd), which was banned in 2014; the neo-Nazi terrorist National Socialist Underground (Nationalsozialistischer Untergrund—NSU), which has been accused of ten murders; and the Frankish Action Front (Fränkisches Aktionsfront). Leaders of Golden Dawn and NPD have exchanged numerous visits, and Golden Dawn representatives have occasionally participated in public acts organized

206

Sofia Tipaldou

by the NPD. For example, they joined the May 2005 commemoration of Nazi Germany’s defeat, the June 2005 “Fest der Völker—For a Europe of Nations” in Jena, NPD’s September 2005 convention in Riesa, and May Day 2006 in Rostock. Similarly, NPD leaders Udo Voigt and Thomas Wulff participated in the 2006 and 2007 Imia marches. 91 Nikolaos Michaloliakos also visited Thorsten Heise, an NPD party official and former leading member of the banned neo-Nazi Free German Worker’s Party (Freiheitliche Deutsche Arbeiterpartei—FAP), at his residence. In 2013, Golden Dawn hosted a German delegation, which it described as “journalists,” that visited the Greek parliament. The two German guests, Matthias Fischer and Sebastian Schmaus, were actually leading figures of the NPD and connected to the neo-Nazi Free Network South. Fischer had served twenty months in jail for inciting illegal activity, while Schmaus had been fined for physical aggression against others. The two visitors published details of their visit to Athens on their organization’s website, which the Greek press quickly publicized. They also revealed that members of Golden Dawn went to Nuremberg in November 2012 at the invitation of Free Network South and that the next meeting between the two sides was to take place at the Imia commemoration, at the invitation of Michaloliakos. 92 Golden Dawn also cultivated ties with the Spanish far right. Catalan farright activists traveled to Greece twice to meet the with Golden Dawn leaders. In January 2013, members of the youth wing of the populist far right Platform for Catalonia (Plataforma per Catalunya—PxC), Sergio Concepción and Cristian Amaya, and leaders of the even more extreme Tramontane House (Casal Tramuntana), Alberto Sanchez and Alejandro Fernandez, met with Nikolaos Michaloliakos and published pictures taken inside Golden Dawn’s headquarters. In August 2013, Fernandez and Concepción returned to Athens and posed for pictures with Ilias Kasidiaris. Fernandez also posted a photo of two of his tattoos: Golden Dawn’s meander next to the Tramontane House emblem. One year earlier, in November 2012, Golden Dawn’s representative for foreign affairs participated in a “Days of Dissent” conference in Madrid organized by Juan Antonio Llopart’s Republican Social Movement (Movimiento Social Republicano—MSR), which has links to most European far-right parties (like the National Front and Jobbik) as well as to Pedro Varela, who was sentenced in Spain for the distribution of neoNazi material. The event was organized by Jobbik’s vice president for external affairs, Samu Tamás Gergö, and there were also participants from Russia, Italy, and Great Britain. 93 Finally, party members participated in a secret conference, “Golden Dawn: The Political Struggle and the Strategy of Tension,” held in Belgium in October 2014. That meeting was organized by the Italian “cultural association” ZenitBelgio, which is connected to Casa Pound. The invited speakers

The Dawning of Europe and Eurasia?

207

included two Golden Dawn MEPs, Konstantinos Boviatsos and Alexanderos Lyris, as well as the head of Casa Pound, Gabriele Adinolfi. 94 At the Peak of Its Glory: The 2012 Solidarity Wave When Golden Dawn entered the Greek parliament in 2012, many likeminded organizations wanted to imitate its winning formula. In Spain, the Catalan Tramontane House and PxC, along with the Valencian far-right Spain 2000 (Espanya 2000) copied Golden Dawn’s signature black T-shirts and implemented its populist strategies, like food distribution to the needy— natives, not foreigners—and organized blood drives. 95 These populist strategies require groups to shy away from public manifestations of being a Nazi cult, although the core of Golden Dawn remains “hard core National Socialist” according to Carolyn Yeager, a National Alliance (USA) member who has been Golden Dawn’s guest in Greece. 96 At the same time, Andrew Anglin, editor of one of the most popular Nazi magazines, The Daily Stormer, describes Kasidiaris as “the heroic future-dictator of Greece.” 97 In Italy, a new organization not only copied Golden Dawn’s rhetoric and style, but also hijacked its name. Alessandro Gardossi established his Triestebased organization, Golden Dawn Italy, in October 2012. He insists that his group is not a cell of the Greek Golden Dawn, but an “Italian and autonomous” initiative that is using the Greek brand for marketing reasons. 98 Golden Dawn Italy has stated that it will offer free legal assistance to the jailed Greek Golden Dawn MPs, 99 and published on its (now-shuttered) Facebook site that it will pursue “dear Benito’s” goals and restore Italians’ dignity. 100 In May 2013, Vincenzo Maresca formed Golden Dawn Europe, which secured a seat in Northern Italy’s Pordenone region. Golden Dawn Europe endorses Evola-inspired ideas, makes references to Mussolini and Hitler, and uses rhetoric inspired by the Greek Golden Dawn and Italian far-right movements. 101 Similarly, the organization Hungarian Dawn (Magyar Hajnal) emerged in Hungary and adopted the Greek group’s distinctive features and called for unity among Europe’s nationalists. 102 Finally, the Spanish incarnation of Golden Dawn, Amanecer Dorado, was formed in October 2014 by Antonio Vicendo Valdés, a former member of the extreme-right National Alliance (Alianza Nacional). 103 Perhaps the best proof of Golden Dawn’s international visibility are the solidarity messages it received when its leadership was arrested in September 2012. Dugin, for instance, stated that the prosecution is politically motivated and that Golden Dawn is being demonized because it differs from other political parties, particularly for its declared faith to traditional values. 104 Nick Griffin brought the issue to the European Parliament and expressed his and his party’s support for the imprisoned Golden Dawn MPs. He repeated his claim that the arrests have no solid legal base in the 2013 Moscow

208

Sofia Tipaldou

conference. 105 Furthermore, Golden Dawn’s website has published a series of pictures allegedly of “citizens from Italy, France, Columbia, Argentina, Spain, Sweden, Serbia, Germany, and many more show[ing] their solidarity to the prosecuted fighters of Golden Dawn that are victims of the international loan sharks’ polemic.” 106 Two months later, the drive-by shooting outside the party office in Neo Irakleio incited an even bigger solidarity wave from all over the world. Pictures of the two killed party members, often accompanied by candles in the form of Golden Dawn’s iconic meandros, and solidarity messages were seen from the streets to the football stadiums, from Colombia to Russia and from Australia to the United States. Golden Dawn received solidarity messages from Germany (Freies Netz Süd carried a banner saying “The solution for Greece = Golden Dawn”), Berlin, Colombia, the Czech Republic, Dortmund, Florence (Casa Pound), Great Britain (NBP and the British division of Narodowe Odrodzenie Polski), Hungary, Melbourne, Milan (Forza Nuova), Sydney, Spain (Alianza Nacional, TNT, Acción Nacional Revolucionaria), Sweden, Ukraine (Karpatska Sech), the United States (Free America Rally), and Vilnius. 107 A commemorative video posted the day after the killing features tributes to the dead in various forms (candles, banners, flags, graffiti) by TNT (Spain), Casa Pound, and Forza Nuova (Italy), the Party of the Swedes—SvP, FK APOEL fans (Cyprus), NPD, as well as groups from Czech Republic and Slovakia. 108 Some groups organized bigger scale public events. Acción Nacional Revolucionaria, for example, organized a meeting in front of the Greek Embassy in Madrid. In Hungary, the organization Magyar Hajnal Mozgalom handed a letter to the Greek embassy with the title “stop the witch hunt.” Similarly, in Latvia, members of Gustava Celmina Centrs and nonaligned nationalists gathered in front of the Greek embassy to deliver a similar message. 109 In Sweden, protests by the Swedish Resistance Movement led to clashes with police. 110 In Russia, the killings coincided with the annual Russian March, the country’s biggest nationalist parade, where a banner for the two victims was carried next to a Russian banner that demanded the freedom of “political prisoners,” referring to nationalists arrested under Article 232 of the Russian Criminal Code for the formation of an extremist group. 111 Solidarity messages in support of Golden Dawn were also displayed at football stadiums, where banners featuring Golden Dawn and its assassinated members were unfurled by fans of Atlético Madrid, Serbian FK Radnički Niš, 112 CSKA Moscow, FC Dynamo Kiev, FC Apollon Limassol, 113 Red Star Belgrade, and JSD Partizan Belgrade. 114 Latsio’s fans raised a banner with the phrase: “Il Tramonto e rosso, l’alba dorata. Manolis e Yorgos presenti” [The sunset is red, the dawn is gold. Manolis and Yorgos are present]. 115

The Dawning of Europe and Eurasia?

209

CONCLUSION Golden Dawn started as a marginal organization in the late 1970s, but over the course of thirty-five years managed to become a successful model for farright organizations across the globe. Since its beginnings, the party has tried to enter into alliances with influential far-right organizations. It was largely influenced by CEDADE and the New European Order, but also by Vladimir Zhirinovsky and Alexander Dugin connections. Over the years it became actively involved in international events and conferences that brought together far-right activists from around Europe. Such events allowed its leaders to cultivate long-term alliances with the British BNP, the German NPD, the Italian Casa Nuova and Casa Pound, and other like-minded organizations. The turning point in Golden Dawn’s influence was the Greek parliamentary election of 2012, when it managed to become the country’s fifth-largest political force. The factors behind the electoral rise of Golden Dawn are multiple and beyond the scope of this chapter, as are its funding sources. But after entering the Greek parliament, the movement’s fame exploded, and it became the model for similar organizations that are now imitating its name, style, symbols, ideology, and strategies. The party received extensive local and international media coverage that raised its international visibility, especially given its leaders’ penchant for provocative statements and actions. The arrest and subsequent imprisonment of Golden Dawn’s top leaders did not sever the organization’s international contacts. On the contrary, the imprisoned leaders are now perceived as martyrs for their ideals, and the fame of the organization has only grown. The following quote posted on one of the most popular far-right blogs, Stormfront, is typical: “I declare to you that I am not afraid of prison! I am proud that I am being persecuted for my ideas! The handcuffs you cuff on me are a badge of honor! [signed] Nikolaos G. Michaloliakos.” 116 Golden Dawn continues to open cells in countries with big Greek minorities and has received solidarity messages from almost the whole white supremacist camp. Similarly, new organizations are trying to replicate its strategies and style. Golden Dawn hopes to assume a leading role in a new European “Brown International” movement that will resurrect the ideology of National Socialism. It found a winning formula that other organizations may want to imitate, but it remains the only European party to win such a big percentage in its national parliament while proposing an openly National Socialist ideology. This has caused some European populist far-right parties to distance themselves from Golden Dawn, like the French National Front, the Belgian Vlaams Belang, the Freedom Party of Austria, and the Dutch Party for Freedom, along with their allies in the European Alliance for Freedom.

210

Sofia Tipaldou

While Golden Dawn’s influence in Europe rises, its links to Russia become even closer, thanks to common geopolitical and cultural concerns, intensified by the EU’s geopolitical reassertion and continued economic crisis. As high-ranking members of Golden Dawn repeat more and more frequently, Russia has “always been the most important potential counterweight to the pressure of the British-American axis.” Russia could protect Greece from ongoing attacks from international Zionism that uses Turkish expansion and traitorous politicians to accomplish its goals. 117 This geopolitical realignment, according to Dugin, would be a win–win situation, with Russia securing Greece’s territorial integrity and Greece leading a “spiritual hegemony” based on Orthodox Christian values as the natural heir of the Byzantine empire. 118 NOTES 1. Golden Dawn’s candidate placed fourth, only slightly behind the New Democracy candidate, Aris Spiliotopoulos, who received 16.92 percent. 2. Ministry of Internal Affairs, Elections of Regions and Municipalities 2014. Accessed September 15, 2014, http://ekloges.ypes.gr/. 3. According to the Deputy Public Prosecutor, Charalambos Vourliotis, Golden Dawn is divided into a political wing and an operational wing responsible for physical attacks. Both are subordinated to the party’s absolute leader. “Olokliro to porisma Vourlioti gia ti Chrysi Avgi [Vourlioti’s full findings on Golden Dawn], Avgi, September 30, 2013. Accessed February 14, 2015, http://www.avgi.gr/article/1041448/olokliro-to-porisma-bourlioti-gia-ti-xrusi-augi. Soon after Vourliotis’ findings were announced, two prosecutors with the Athens Court of Appeals, Ioanna Klapa-Christodoulea and Maria Dimitripoulou-Andreadou, asked that Golden Dawn MPs be stripped of parliamentary immunity, which was granted. “To porisma ton anakritrion gia ti Chrysi Avgi (PDF) [The prosecutors’ findings on Golden Dawn (PDF)], February 23, 2014. Accessed February 14, 2015, http://jailgoldendawn.com/2014/02/23/%CF%84%CE %BF-%CF%80%CF%8C%CF%81%CE%B9%CF%83%CE%BC%CE%B1-%CF%84%CF% 89%CE%BD-%CE%B1%CE%BD%CE%B1%CE%BA%CF%81%CE%B9%CF%84% CF%81%CE%B9%CF%8E%CE%BD-%CE%B3%CE%B9%CE%B1-%CF%84%CE%B7%CF%87%CF%81%CF%85%CF%83/. In October 15, 2014, High Court prosecutor Isidoros Ntogiakos argued that all eighteen Golden Dawn MPs and another forty-nine members should stand trial for managing or participating in a criminal organization disguised as a political party. “I eisaggeliki protasi Ntogiakou (PDF) kai kapoia prota stoicheia [Dogiakos’ recommendation (PDF) and some first evidence], October 16, 2014. Accessed February 14, 2015, http:// jailgoldendawn.com/2014/10/16/%CE%B7-%CE%B5%CE%B9%CF%83%CE%B1%CE %B3%CE%B3%CE%B5%CE%BB%CE%B9%CE%BA%CE%AE-%CF%80%CF%81%CF %8C%CF%84%CE%B1%CF%83%CE%B7-%CE%BD%CF%84%CE%BF%CE%B3%CE %B9%CE%AC%CE%BA%CE%BF%CF%85-pdf-%CE%BA%CE%B1%CE%B9/. 4. Giannis Papadopoulos, “Poia itan ta dio thymata tis dolofonikis epithesis sto N. Irakleio?” [Who were the two victims of the deadly attack in N. Irakleio], Ta Nea, November 4, 2013. Accessed September 15, 2014, http://www.tanea.gr/news/greece/article/5051429/poiahtan-ta-dyo-thymata-ths-bias/. See also: Helena Smith, “Two Golden Dawn Members Killed in Drive-by Shooting Outside Athens Office,” The Guardian, November 1, 2013. Accessed September 15, 2014, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/01/golden-dawn-killedshooting-athens. 5. Dimitris Psarras, “The Rise of the Neo-Nazi Party ‘Golden Dawn’ in Greece: Neo-Nazi Mobilization in the Wake of the Crisis” (Brussels: Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, 2013).

The Dawning of Europe and Eurasia?

211

6. See the book I Mavri Vivlos tis Chrysis Avgis [Golden Dawn’s Black Bible] by Dimitris Psarras and his publications from the Rosa Luxemburg Institute and those from the newspaper column Ios [Virus] that was published in the newspaper Eleftherotypia and, since 2012, in the cooperatively produced newspaper Efimerida ton Syntakton. 7. Antonis A. Ellinas, “The Rise of Golden Dawn: The New Face of the Far Right in Greece,” South European Society and Politics 18 (2013): 543–65. 8. Ibid.; Elias Dinas, Vassiliki Georgiadou, Iannis Konstantinidis, and Lamprini Rori, “From Dusk to Dawn: Political Opportunities and Party Success of Right-Wing Extremism,” Party Politics, December 1 (2013), http://ppq.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/11/27/ 1354068813511381.full.pdf+html; Dimitris Psarras, I Chrysi Avgi Brosta sti Dikaios y ni [The Golden Law Facing the Law], Brussels and Athens: Rosa Luxemburg Institute, 2014, 37. Accessed September 27, 2014, http://rosalux.gr/sites/default/files/publications/psarras_final_ web.pdf; Vassiliki Georgiadou, “I eklogiki anodos tis Chrysis Avgis. Psifos-revans ton episfalon kai nees politikes evkairies” [The Electoral Rise of Golden Dawn: Vote-Revenge of the Precarious and New Political Chances], in O diplos eklogikos seismos [The Double Electoral Earthquake], ed. Giannis Voulgaris and Ilias Nikolakopoulos (Athens: Themelio 2014), 185–219; “Michaloliakos: Eimaste i spora ton nikimenon tou 1945, oi ethnikososialistes, oi fasistes!” [Michaloliakos: We are the sowing of the losers of 1945, the national-socialists, the fascists!], JailGoldenDawn, November 11, 2014. Accessed November 19, 2014, http:// jailgoldendawn.com/2014/11/11/%CE%BC%CE%B9%CF%87%CE%B1%CE%BB%CE%BF %CE%BB%CE%B9%CE%AC%CE%BA%CE%BF%CF%82-%CE%B5%CE%AF%CE%BC %CE%B1%CF%83%CF%84%CE%B5-%CE%B7-%CF%83%CF%80%CE%BF%CF%81 %CE%AC-%CF%84%CF%89%CE%BD-%CE%BD%CE%B9%CE%BA%CE%B7/. 9. “Skini Triti: 23 pros 24 Iouliou 1974, EAT-ESA, Vretaniki Presveia, Aerodromio Ellinikou [Third Scene: 23 to 24 of July 1974, EAT-ESA, British Embassy, Elliniko Airport],” post on XYZContagion blog, October 3, 2014. Accessed October 3, 2014, https://xyzcontagion.wordpress.com. 10. Psarras, Golden Dawn’s Black Bible, 14. 11. Konstantinos A. Plevris, Gegonota. Ta agnosta paraskinia [Facts: The Unknown Backstage] (Athens: Ilektron, 2009), 635. 12. Evangelos Ch. Chaniotis, “Komma 4is Avgoustou” [4th of August Party], Patria, August 4, 2011. Accessed October 5, 2014, http://elkosmos.gr. 13. Psarras, Golden Dawn’s Black Bible, 35. 14. Nikos Bogiopoulos, “Einai Nazi” [They Are Nazi], Rizospastis, October 16, 2012. Accessed September 20, 2014, http://www.rizospastis.gr/story.do?id=7091010. 15. Chrysi Avgi, Nea Evropaiki Taksis, I Diakiryksi tis Varkelonis [New European Order, Barcelona’s Declaration] (Athens: Chrysi Avgi, 1981). Accessed September 20, 2014, http:// xyzcontagion.wordpress.com/2013/03/31/net/. 16. Chrysi Avgi, no. 64 (July 1991). Accessed September 20, 2014, http://jungle-report. blogspot.com.es/2012/03/blog-post.html. 17. “Aetos, svastikes kai Chitler” [Eagle, Swastikas, and Hitler], Chrysi Avgi Watch, March 23, 2012. Accessed September 15, 2014, http://xa-watch.blogspot.com.es/2012/03/blog-post_ 9784.html. 18. Psarras, Golden Dawn’s Black Bible, 36. 19. Ibid., 40. 20. “Emeis” [We], Chrysi Avgi, no. 5 (May 1981). A scanned copy is available on the website of XYZContagion. Accessed September 25, 2014, http://xyzcontagion.wordpress.com/ 2014/10/01/skini-01/. 21. These were a series of terrorist attacks against communist and left targets (e.g. the offices of the Greek Communist Party, the newspapers Anti (Against) and Avgi (Dawn), and the Elli and Rex cinemas, which were showing Soviet movies. Kleon Nemeas, “Oi epomides kai ta ekriktika tou Nikou Michaloliakou tis Chrysis Avgis—Psevtis, vlaks, katadotis kai Giota-4” [Nikos Michaloliakos of Golden Dawn Military Insignia and Explosives—Liar, Stupid, Snitch, and Giota-4], XYZContagion, May 4, 2012. Accessed October 5, 2014, http://xyzcontagion. wordpress.com/2012/05/04/epomides-ekriktika-mixaloliakos/. 22. Psarras, Golden Dawn’s Black Bible, 48–49.

212

Sofia Tipaldou

23. Ibid., 15–18. 24. Akis Kosonas, “Oi fasistikes organoseis kai i katagogi tis EPEN” [Fascist Organizations and EPEN’s Origin], Anti, no. 258, (April 13, 1984). Accessed October 5, 2014, https:// xyzcontagion.wordpress.com/2011/05/05/fasistes-198-2/#more-1181. 25. Michaloliakos was succeeded in EPEN’s youth wing by Makis Vorides, who years later served as New Democracy’s minister of health from 2014 to 2015. 26. With Golden Dawn’s judicial prosecution, many important internal documents became public. The secret statute, found in the house of Golden Dawn’s deputy leader Christos Pappas, is the basis of the charges of establishing and directing a criminal organization filed against MPs and members of Golden Dawn. Party leaders insist it is a forgery. See Ioanna Mandrou, “Sto ‘koskino’ tou Ariou Pagou apo avrio i CH.A” [In the ‘Loop’ of the Superior Court since Tomorrow Golden Dawn], Kathimerini, May 4, 2014. Accessed September 20, 2014, http:// www.kathimerini.gr/765457/article/epikairothta/ellada/sto-koskino-toy-areioy--pagoy-apoayrio-h-xa. 27. Psarras, Golden Dawn’s Black Bible, 53–56. 28. “Nees Apokalipseis apo ton ‘Kyklo tis Chrysis Avgis’” [New Revelations from the “Circle of Golden Dawn”], Efimerida ton Syntakton, 11, 2014. Accessed September 20, 2014, http://www.efsyn.gr/?p=188879. 29. Emphasis in original. “To krifo katastatiko tis nazistikis organosis Ch.A.” [The Hidden Statute of the Nazi Organization G.D.], Efimerida ton Syntakton, September 29, 2013. Accessed September 20, 2014, http://www.efsyn.gr/?p=123425. 30. “Nazistiki chairetismoi sto simvoulio tou Dimou Athinon” [Nazi Salutes in the Council of Athens’ Municipality], TVXS, January 18, 2011. Accessed October 5, 2014, http://goo.gl/ ZU1RVD. 31. Vasilis G. Labropoulos, 2013, “O krifos stratos tis Chrysis Avgis” [Golden Dawn’s Secret Army], To Vima, September 22, 2013. Accessed October 5, 2014, http://www.tovima.gr/ politics/article/?aid=531359. 32. From the coronary report of interrogators addressed to the Greek parliament’s president for the immunity lift of Golden Dawn’s not arrested MPs. In “Skini Dekati kai Teliki Avlaia: As synopsisoume (To pazl simplironetai?)” [Scene number ten and final curtain: Let us conclude (Is the puzzle done?)], XYZContagion, October 10, 2014. Accessed October 10, 2014, http://xyzcontagion.wordpress.com/2014/10/10/skhnh-10/. 33. Ibid. 34. “I katathesi tou Ilia Stavrou, stelechous tis Chrysis Avgis, ragizei ton pirina tis nazistikis symmorias” [The declaration of Ilias Stavrou, Golden Dawn member, breaks the core of the Nazi gang], JailGoldenDawn, June 19, 2014. Accessed September 25, 2014, http://goo.gl/ OOzVDe. 35. See Ion Philippou, “O Ioudeochristianismos” [Judeo-Christianism], Chrysi Avgi, no. 59 (December 1990). Accessed September 20, 2014, http://xa-watch.blogspot.com.es/2012/03/ blog-post_8472.html. 36. Psarras, Golden Dawn’s Black Bible, 248. 37. Ibid., 246–48. 38. Ellinas, “The Rise of Golden Dawn,” 8. 39. Psarras, Golden Dawn’s Black Bible, 268–72. 40. N.G. Michaloliakos, Echthroi tou kathestotos. Chrysi Avgi 1993–1998 [Enemies of the Regime: Golden Dawn 1993–1998] (Athens: Askalon, 2000), 70. 41. “Ethnikistes i Nazistes? Arnoumetha to istoriko psevdos ton ‘kalon’ symmachon kai ton ‘kakon’ fasiston” [Nationalists or Nazi? We deny the historical lie of “good” allies and “bad” fascists], Chrysi Avgi, April 6, 2006. Excerpt published in the article “Skini Dekati kai Teliki Avlaia: As sinopsisoume (To pazl simplironetai?)” [Scene number ten and final curtain: Let us conclude (Is the puzzle done?)], XYZContagion, October 10, 2014. Accessed October 10, 2014, http://xyzcontagion.wordpress.com/2014/10/10/skhnh-10/. 42. “Poios einai o igetis tis Chrysis Avgis Nikos Michaloliakos” [Who is Golden Dawn’s leader Nikos Michaloliakos], Iefimerida, February 8, 2012. Accessed September 20, 2014, http://goo.gl/YdL9Q3. See also Psarras, Golden Dawn’s Black Bible, 268.

The Dawning of Europe and Eurasia?

213

43. Thanos Maroukis, “Irregular Migration in Greece: Size and Features, Causes, and Discourses,” in Irregular Migration in Europe: Myths and Realities, ed. Anna Triandafillidou (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2010), 105–7. 44. See the updated timeline “Athens and the Crisis” compiled by the “City at a Time of Crisis Project.” Accessed November 20, 2014, http://www.crisis-scape.net/resources/generaltimeline; “Greek Bail-Out: 77% Went into the Financial Sector,” Attac, June 17, 2013. Accessed November 20, 2014, http://www.attac.at/news/detailansicht/datum/2013/06/17/greekbail-out-77-went-into-the-financial-sector.html. 45. Norwegian Social Science Data Services (NSD), European Election Database. Accessed September 20, 2014, http://www.nsd.uib.no/european_election_database/index.html. 46. Chrysi Avgi, September 10, 2014, 23. Accessed September 25, 2014, http://www. xryshaygh.com/assets/efimerida/893-web.pdf; “Perifereiakes Organoseis [Regional Branches],” Chrysi Avgi. Accessed October 5, 2014, on Golden Dawn’s homepage: http:// www.xryshaygh.com/index.php/epikoinonia/periferiakes. 47. “To lifting tis ellinikis akrodeksias,” Eleftherotypia, June 9, 2002. Accessed October 5, 2014, http://www.iospress.gr/ios2002/ios20020609b.htm. 48. Kim Willsher, “Marine Le Pen to Meet Other Far-Right Leaders in Move to Create EU Bloc,” The Guardian, May 27, 2014. Accessed October 17, 2014, http://www.theguardian. com/world/2014/may/27/marine-le-pen-met-far-right-leaders-eu-bloc. 49. Maik Fielitz, Goldene Morgenröte für Europas extreme Rechte? Der Einfluss der griechischen Chrysi Avgi auf eine extrem rechte transnationale Bewegung (Munich: Feierwerk, 2013), 6. See also: Anton Shekhovtsov and Paul Jackson, eds., White Power Music: Scenes of Extreme-Right Cultural Resistance (Northampton, UK: RNM, 2012). 50. Psarras, Golden Dawn’s Black Bible, 44–45; “Oi ‘dikes mas’ tyfles vomves” [Our “own” blind bombs], I Efimerida ton Syntakton, April 21, 2013. Accessed October 11, 2014, http://www.efsyn.gr/?p=42906. 51. José L. Rodríguez Jiménez, “Antisemitism and the Extreme Right in Spain (1962–1997),” Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism, Analysis of Current Trends in Antisemitism, no. 15, 1999. Accessed October 10, 2014, http://sicsa.huji.ac.il/15spain.html. 52. “Otan i Chrysi Avgi proschorouse stin neonazistiki Diethni ‘Nea Evropaiki Taksi’ kai sti ‘Diakyriksi tis Varkelonis,’ 1981” [When Golden Dawn Joined up Neo-Nazi International “New European Order” and the “Barcelona Declaration,” 1981], XYZContagion, March 31, 2013. Accessed October 11, 2014, http://xyzcontagion.wordpress.com/2013/03/31/net/. 53. Xavier Casals, “Iconografía: Los Neonazis Griegos de Amanecer Dorado se inspiraban en los Españoles,” Blog de Xavier Casals, August 11, 2012. Accessed November 23, 2014, https://xaviercasals.wordpress.com/2012/08/. 54. Alain de Benoist and Charles Champetier, Manifesto for a European Renaissance (London: Arktos Media, 2012); Thule: La Cultura de la Otra Europa. Accessed November 23, 2014, http://www.scribd.com/doc/207864911/CEDADE-Thule-La-Cultura-de-La-OtraEuropa. 55. Vassiliki Georgiadou, “Right-Wing Populism and Extremism: The Rapid Rise of ‘Golden Dawn’ in Crisis-Ridden Greece,” in Right-Wing Extremism in Europe: Country Analyses, Counter-Strategies and Labor-Market Oriented Exit Strategies (Berlin: Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, 2013), 85–86. 56. The interview was published in issues 56 (September 1989) and 78 (April 30, 1993) and in Leon Degrelle, Chilia Chronia Hitler [Hitler for Thousand Years] (Athens: Logxe, 2002). Psarras, Golden Dawn’s Black Bible, 73. 57. “Skini Evdomi: 12 Apriliou 1992, Ksenodoxeio ‘Caravel,’ Organismos Kratikon Lacheion” [Scene 7: 12 April 1992, “Caravel” Hotel, Hellenic State Lotteries], XYZContagion, October 7, 2014. Accessed October 10, 2014, http://xyzcontagion.wordpress.com/2014/10/07/ skini-07/#more-4226. 58. Nikos Chasapopoulos, Golden Dawn: The History, the Faces, and the Truth (Athens: Livanis, 2013), 111–12. 59. Ibid., 109.

214

Sofia Tipaldou

60. Casa Pound activists, characterized as “Third Millenium Fascists,” occupy empty buildings to gain visibility and have played a leading role in various attacks (including murders) against immigrants, socialists, and communist militants. Jonathan Birdwell, “CasaPound: The New Face of Fascism?” Open Society Foundations, October 29, 2012. Accessed February 14, 2015, http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/voices/casapound-new-face-fascism; Saverio Ferrari, “La vera natura di Casa Pound,” January 20, 2015. Accessed February 14, 2015, http:// ilmanifesto.info/la-vera-natura-di-casa-pound/. 61. Igino Ceremigna, “CasaPound Italy Meets Golden Dawn at Conference in Rome,” Demotix, November 29, 2013. Accessed October 13, 2014, http://www.demotix.com/news/ 3376553/casapound-italy-meets-golden-dawn-conference-rome#media-3376362; “Neo-Fascists welcome Greek Neo-Nazis to Rome,” La Gazetta del Mezzogiorno, November 28, 2013. Accessed October 13, 2014, http://www.lagazzettadelmezzogiorno.it/english/neo-fascistswelcome-greek-neo-nazis-to-rome-no673573/. 62. “Conference of European Extreme-Right Parties in Rome,” Kantor Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry. Accessed October 13, 2014, http://www.kantorcenter.tau.ac. il/conference-european-extreme-right-parties-rome; Panos8814, “Forza Nuova, Golden Dawn, NPD, BNP and Democracia Nacional meet in Rome,” Stormfront.org. Accessed October 13, 2014, https://www.stormfront.org/forum/t1027639/. 63. See the “Links” section of the Chrysi Avgi New York website. Accessed October 6, 2014, http://xaameriki.wordpress.com/links/. 64. “Goldene Morgenröte gründet erste Parteizelle in Deutschland!” [Golden Dawn opens its first party core in Germany!], Die Freiheitsliebe, February 3, 2013. Accessed October 10, 2014, http://diefreiheitsliebe.de/gesellschaft/goldene-morgenrote-grundet-erste-parteizelle-indeutschland/; “Greek Extremists: ‘Golden Dawn’ Fosters Ties with German Neo-Nazis,” Spiegel Online, February 4, 2013. Accessed October 10, 2014, http://www.spiegel.de/international/ europe/greek-far-right-party-has-made-contact-with-bavarian-neo-nazis-a-881303.html. 65. “Panikovliti oi Germanoi gia tin anodo tis Chrysis Avgis stin Omogeneia—Proklitiko arthro tou Spiegel” [The Germans panicked with the rise of Golden Dawn in the diaspora— Provocative article from Spiegel], Chrysi Avgi, February 5, 2013. Accessed October 10, 2014, http://www.xryshaygh.com/index.php/enimerosi/view/panikoblhtoi-oi-germanoi-gia-thnorganwsh-purhnwn-ths-chrushs-aughs-proklht. 66. See Golden Dawn’s homepage. Accessed October 10, 2014, http://www.xryshaygh. com/. 67. “Chrysi Avgi: Ta ‘plokamia’ stin omogeneia” [Golden Dawn: The “Tentacles” in the Diaspora], Euro2day, October 30, 2013. Accessed October 10, 2014, http://www.euro2day.gr/ specials/topics/article/1149758/hrysh-avgh-ta-plokamia-sthn-omogeneia.html; “Golden Dawn’s Global Aspirations,” Neos Kosmos, November 12, 2013. Accessed October 10, 2014, http://neoskosmos.com/news/en/golden-dawns-global-aspirations. 68. Jean-Marie Le Pen also tried to unite European far-right movements through the platform EuroNat (European Nationalists) in 1997. Despite EuroNat’s catchy slogan (“Nationalists of all countries, unite!”), the attempt soon failed. Makis Voridis, leader of the Le Pen–inspired Hellenic Front, represented Greece at EuroNat. 69. Psarras, Golden Dawn’s Black Bible, 72–79. 70. David Holthouse, “Preston Wiginton Emerges in Russia Promoting Race Hate,” Southern Poverty Law Center Intelligence Report (Summer 2008). Accessed February 15, 2015, http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2008/summer/ from-russia-with-hate. 71. “Preparation for the International Nationalists Forum,” DPNI. Accessed October 13, 2014, http://www.riskandforecast.com/useruploads/files/pc_flash_report_russian_connection. pdf. 72. Aris Ravanos, “I Rosia, i Chrysi Avgi kai oi opadoi tou . . . Moskovou” [Russia, Golden Dawn and Muscovite’s supporters], To Vima, April 13, 2014. Accessed October 14, 2014, http://www.tovima.gr/politics/article/?aid=586254. 73. “The Russian Connection: The Spread of Pro-Russian Policies on the European Far Right,” Political Capital Institute, March 14, 2014. Accessed October 14, 2014, http://www. riskandforecast.com/post/in-depth-analysis/the-russian-connection_803.html.

The Dawning of Europe and Eurasia?

215

74. “Golden Dawn and Russian Neo-Nazism,” GRReporter, April 15, 2014. Accessed February 15, 2015, http://www.grreporter.info/en/golden_dawn_and_russian_neonazism/11007. 75. “Greece: Golden Dawn Heralds ‘New Beginning for Europe,’” May 25, 2014. Accessed October 14, 2014, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WN-fi1MR-xw. 76. “Russia Today: I Chrysi Avgi deichnei ti dinami tis stin poreia gia tis ekloges—VIDEO” [Golden Dawn shows its strength at the electoral course—VIDEO], Chrysi Aygi, March 22, 2014. Accessed October 14, 2014, http://www.xryshaygh.com/index.php/enimerosi/view/ russia-today-h-chrush-augh-deichnei-thn-dunamh-ths-sthn-poreia-gia-tis-eklo; Ravanos, “I Rosia, i Chrysi Avgi kai oi opadoi tou . . . Moskovou.” 77. “Grecheskie natsionalisty trebuyut rospuska parlamenta” [Russian Nationalists Demand the Dissolution of the Parliament], RBK, November 28, 2013. Accessed October 15, 2014, http://top.rbc.ru/politics/28/11/2013/891682.shtml. 78. Ravanos, “I Rosia, i Chrysi Avgi kai oi opadoi tou . . . Moskovou.” 79. “Defencenet: Oi epistoles Alexader Dugin—N.G. Michaloliakou” [Correspondence between Alexander Dugin and N.G. Michaloliakos], Chrysi Avgi, November 11, 2013. Accessed October 14, 2014, http://www.xryshaygh.com/index.php/enimerosi/view/defencenet-oiepistoles-alejanter-ntougkin-n.-g.-michaloliakou. 80. Nikolaos G. Michaloliakos, “I Krimea, o Moskovos kai i Ellada” [Crimea, Muscovite, and Greece], Chrysi Avgi, March 15, 2014. Accessed October 15, 2014, http://www.xryshaygh. com/index.php/enimerosi/view/h-krimaia-o-moskobos-kai-h-ellada-arthro-tou-n.g.michaloliakou. 81. “I Chrysi Avgi sti Rosia” [Golden Dawn in Russia], Chrysi Avgi, December 11, 2013, 9; “Evropeiskie pravye obsuzhdali v Moskve, kak zashchitit’ traditsionnye tsennosti” [European Right Discussed in Moscow How to Protect Traditional Values], Tribuna, November 27, 2013. Accessed October 14, 2014, http://www.tribuna.ru/news/politics/evropeyskie_pravye_ obsuzhdali_moskve_kak_zashchitit_traditsionnye_tsennosti/; “Oli i Evropi sto plevro tis Chrysis Avgis: Panevropaiko synedrio sti Rosia gia tis paranomes politikes diokseis” [All Europe on Golden Dawn’s Side: Pan-European Conference in Russia for the Illegal Political Persecutions], Chrysi Avgi, December 11, 2013. Accessed October 14, 2014, http://www.xryshaygh. com/index.php/enimerosi/view/olh-h-eurwph-sto-pleuro-ths-chrushs-aughs. 82. “I Chrysi Avgi stin Moscha: Thetoume tis vaseis tis ellinorosikis synergasias” [Golden Dawn in Moscow: We Out the Foundations of a Greek-Russian Partnership], Chrysi Avgi, May 15, 2014. Accessed October 14, 2014, http://www.xryshaygh.com/index.php/enimerosi/view/ h-chrush-augh-sthn-moscha-thetoume-tis-baseis-ths-ellhnorwsikhs-sunergasias. 83. Anton Shekhovtsov (2014), “Fascist Vultures of the Hungarian Jobbik and the Russian Connection,” Anton Skekhovtsov’s Blog, April 12, 2014. Accessed October 14, 2014, http:// anton-shekhovtsov.blogspot.com.es/2014/04/fascist-vultures-of-hungarian-jobbik.html. 84. Dimitris Papageorgiou, “Chrysi Avgi: Scheseis storgis me tous Oukranous Neonazi” [Golden Dawn: Affection Relations with Ukranian Neo-Nazi], March 1, 2014. Accessed October 14, 2014, http://www.thetoc.gr/koinwnia/article/xrusi-augi-sxeseis-storgis-me-tousoukranous-neonazi; Lefteris Bintela and Maria Psara,”Oi desmoi aimatos tis Chrysis Avgis me tous Oukranous Neonazi” [Blood Links of Golden Dawn with Ukrainian Neo-Nazi], To Ethnos, September 12, 2014. Accessed November 23, 2014, http://www.ethnos.gr/article.asp? catid=22767&subid=2&pubid=63970714. 85. “Oi diethneis epafes tis Ellinikis Drasis” [International Contacts of Greek Action], Ellinikidrasi, September 5, 2013. Accessed October 14, 2014, http://goo.gl/hXT7Sl. 86. Psarras, Golden Dawn’s Black Bible, 115–16, 303; “Efthines gia ti diethni neonazistiki synaksi” [Responsibilities for the International Neo-Nazi Meeting], Rizospastis, October 30, 1998. Accessed October 10, 2014, http://www2.rizospastis.gr/story.do?id=3745729& publDate=. 87. Raphel Schlembach, “The Transnationality of European Nationalist Movements,” Revue Belge de Philologie et d’Histoire 89 (2011): 1332; Michael Whine, “Trans-European Trends in Right-Wing Extremism,” in Mapping the Extreme Right in Contemporary Europe: From Local to Transnational, ed. Andrea Mammone, Emmanuel Godin, and Brian Jenkins (New York: Routledge, 2012), 317–33; Miroslav Mareš, “Transnational Networks of Extreme Right Parties in East Central Europe: Stimuli and Limits of Cross-Border Cooperation” (paper prepared for

216

Sofia Tipaldou

the 20th IPSA World Congress, Fukuoka, Japan, July 9–13, 2006), 16-17, 25. Accessed February 15, 2015, http://paperroom.ipsa.org/papers/paper_5281.pdf; Psarras, Golden Dawn’s Black Bible, 154, 158–59; Fielitz, Goldene Morgenröte für Europas extreme Rechte?, 9; Karolos Grohmann, “Greek Far-Right ‘Hatewave’ Fest Site Still Secret,” Redorbit, September 15, 2005. Accessed October 11, 2014, http://www.redorbit.com/news/international/240374/greek_ farright_hatewave_fest_site_still_secret/; Christian Ignatzi, (2013) “Neo-Nazis Form Expanding Networks Beyond National Borders,” Deutsche Welle, September 21, 2013. Accessed October 11, 2014, http://www.dw.de/neo-nazis-form-expanding-networks-beyond-nationalborders/a-17104509. 88. Its members are from Germany (Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands), Spain (La Falange), Poland (Narodowe Odrodzenie Polski), Italy (Forza Nuova), Latvia (Nacionala Speka Savieniba), Romania (Noua Dreapta), the Czech Republic (Narodni Sjednoceni), the Netherlands (Nationale Alliantie), Great Britain (England First Party), Slovakia (Slovenska Narodna Jednota and Jednota Slovenskej Mladeze), Portugal (Partido Nacional Renovador), Russia (Russkii Obraz), France (Garde Franque), Serbia (Otacastveni Pokret Obraz), and Greece (Patriotic Alliance). “E moda me ta festival misous. Kalokairi me ton Adolfo” [The Trend with Hate Festivals. Summer with Adolf], Eleftherotypia, September 25, 2005. Accessed October 12, 2014, http://www.iospress.gr/ios2005/ios20050925.htm. 89. Fielitz, Goldene Morgenröte für Europas extreme Rechte?, 9; Robert Bandanza, “Athens: 9th reunion of the European National Front,” Vnn Forum, 18 February 2008, available on: http://vnnforum.com/showthread.php?t=67077. Accessed October 13, 2014. 90. Psarras, “The Rise of the Neo-Nazi Party ‘Golden Dawn’ in Greece,” 32. 91. Ibid., 30–32; “I diethnis nazistiki dyktiosi tis Chrysis Avgis” [Golden Dawn’s International Nazi Network], Jungle Report, October 6, 2013. Accessed October 13, 2014, http:// jungle-report.blogspot.gr/2013/10/blog-post_6.html. 92. “I diethnis nazistiki dyktiosi tis Chrysis Avgis”; “Αpagorefthike neonazistiko komma sti Vavaria” [Neo-Nazi Party Was Banned in Bavaria], Kathimerini, July 24, 2014. Accessed October 13, 2014, http://www.kathimerini.gr/777394/article/epikairothta/kosmos/apagorey 8hke-neonazistiko-komma-sth-vayaria. 93. “Activistas del Casal Tramuntana y PxC se reúnen con un diputado de Amanecer Dorado,” La Marea, September 20, 2014. Accessed October 14, 2014, http://www.lamarea.com/ 2013/09/20/activistas-del-casal-tramuntana-y-pxc-se-encuentran-con-un-portavoz-deamanecer-dorado/; “Ultras con piel de ONG,” El País, November 17, 2012. Accessed October 14, 2014, http://ccaa.elpais.com/ccaa/2012/11/17/valencia/1353176811_374796.html; “Sinantisi Michaloliakou me Katalanous akrodeksious stin Athina” [Meeting of Michaloliakos with Catalan Far-Right Members in Athens], Radio Bubble, April 6, 2013. Accessed October 14, 2014, http://news.radiobubble.gr/2013/04/blog-post_6.html; “VII Jornadas de la Disidencia,” Tribunadeeuropa, September 17, 2012. Accessed October 14, 2014, http://www. tribunadeeuropa.com/2012/12/19/jobbik-samu-tamas-jornadas-de-la-disidencia/; “Jobbik, Samu Tamás, Jornadas de la Disidencia,” December 19, 2012. Accessed October 14, 2014, http://www.tribunadeeuropa.com/2012/12/19/jobbik-samu-tamas-jornadas-de-la-disidencia/. 94. “Krifi diaskepsi neonazi gia tin Chrysi Avgi sto Velgio. Neonazistiki . . . Diethnis” [Secret neo-Nazi conference for Golden Dawn in Belgium. Neo-Nazi . . . International], TVXS, October 6, 2014. Accessed October 13, 2014, http://tvxs.gr/news/kosmos/kryfi-diaskepsineonazi-gia-tin-xrysi-aygi-sto-belgio. 95. Carles Viñas, “Ocupaciones patriotas. El modelo de Casa Pound emerge en España,” Blog de Carles Viñas, September 17, 2014. Accessed October 14, 2014, https://carlesvinyas. wordpress.com/tag/casal-tramuntana/; “Ultras con piel de ONG”; “Activistas del Casal Tramuntana y PxC se reúnen con un diputado de Amanecer Dorado,” La Marea, September 20, 2014. Accessed October 14, 2014, http://www.lamarea.com/2013/09/20/activistas-del-casaltramuntana-y-pxc-se-encuentran-con-un-portavoz-de-amanecer-dorado/. See also the pictures published on the website of Casal Tramuntana “Recogida de alimentos,” Casal Tramuntana, December 12, 2014. Accessed October 14, 2014, http://www.casaltramuntana.org/search? updated-max=2013-12-12T22:00:00%2B01:00&max-results=15; “Jornada invernal de donación de sangre,” Casal Tramuntana, March 13, 2014. Accessed October 14, 2014, http:// www.casaltramuntana.org/2014/03/jornada-invernal-de-donacion-de-sangre.html.

The Dawning of Europe and Eurasia?

217

96. Kleon Nemeas, “Ksenoi neonazi kalesmenoi tou Gebels tis Chrysis Avgis Giorgou Mastora (Misiaka): ‘I sinagogi tha geinei ena oraio dimosio apochoritirio’” [Foreign neo-Nazi guests of Golden Dawn’s Goebbels Giorgu Mastora (Misiaka): “The Mosque will become a Nice Public Bath”], XYZContagion, December 10, 2013. Accessed November 23, 2014, http:// goo.gl/Ck3XaP. 97. Andrew Anglin, “Jews Attempting to Crucify the Entire Golden Dawn,” Daily Stormer, October 17, 2014. Accessed November 23, 2014, https://archive.today/xjny1#selection-321.0321.4; Shane Dixon Kavanaugh, “The Man Bringing Back the Nazi Movement in America,” Vocativ, March 20, 2014. Accessed November 23, 2014, http://www.vocativ.com/usa/race/ man-bringing-back-nazi-movement-america/. 98. Davide Lessi, “Anche l’Italia ha la sua Alba Dorata” [Also Italy Has Its Golden Dawn], La Stampa, November 14, 2012. Accessed October 10, 2014, http://www.lastampa.it/2012/11/ 14/italia/politica/anche-l-italia-ha-la-sua-alba-dorata-pH4UqX9x2WWAoaIQEPBDQM/ pagina.html. “L’altra Alba Dorata italiana precisa: noi non siamo con Fiamma Tricolore,” Atuttadestra, January 11, 2014. Accessed October 10, 2014, http://www.atuttadestra.net/index. php/archives/228709. 99. “Alba Dorata Italia offre assistenza legale gratuita agli inquisiti di Alba Dorata Grecia,” Atuttadestra, October 19, 2013. Accessed October 10, 2014, http://www.atuttadestra.net/index. php/archives/217939. 100. Marco Pasqua, “Alba Dorata in Italia, fondata a Trieste costola movimento filonazista greco. Al via campagna di reclutamento sul web,” Huffington Post, November 12, 2012. Accessed October 10, 2014, http://www.huffingtonpost.it/2012/11/12/alba-dorata-in-italia-al-viacampagna-adesioni_n_2117058.html. 101. Alfio Bernabei, “Golden Dawn links with Italian Fascists,” Searchlight, January 28, 2014. Accessed October 10, 2014, http://www.searchlightmagazine.com/archive/golden-dawnlinks-with-italian-fascists. 102. Fielitz, Goldene Morgenröte für Europas extreme Rechte?, 11. 103. “El partit nazi Amanecer Dorado, legalitzat a l’estat espanyol amb seu a Alcoi,” Vilaweb, October 4, 2014. Accessed November 22, 2014, http://www.vilaweb.cat/noticia/4218075/ 20141104/partit-nazi-amanecer-dorado-legalitzat-lestat-espanyol-alcoi.html. 104. “APOKLEISTIKO: Varysimanti synentevksi me ton steno synergati tou Putin, Alexander Dugin” [EXCLUSIVE: Momentous Interview with Putin’s Close Collaborator, Alexander Dugin], Chrysi Avgi. Accessed November 18, 2014, http://www.xryshaygh.com/index.php/ enimerosi/view/apokleistiko-barushmanth-sunenteujh-me-ton-steno-sunergath-tou-poutinaleja. 105. “H Chrysi Avgi sti Rosia” [Golden Dawn in Russia], Chrysi Avgi, December 11, 2013, 9. 106. “Panevropaiko kinima sibarastasis gia tous diokomenous agonistes tis Chrysis Avgis— Fotoreportaz” [Pan-european solidarity movement for the prosecuted fighters of Golden Dawn—Photo reportage], Golden Dawn, October 5, 2013. Accessed September 12, 2014, http:/ /www.xryshaygh.com/index.php/enimerosi/view/paneurwpaiko-kinhma-sumparastashs-giatous-diwkomenous-agwnistes-ths-chrush; Toni Martinez, “Apoyo a Amanecer Dorado en el día del País Valenciano,” La Marea, October 9, 2013. Accessed September 15, 2014, http://www. lamarea.com/2013/10/09/nazis-valencia/. For more pictures see also: “Sygkinitika minymata sibarastasis apo olo ton kosmo” [Touching solidarity messages from all over the world], Antepithesi, October 4, 2013. Accessed September 12, 2014, http://www.antepithesi.gr/index.php? option=com_k2&view=item&id=1165:sygkinitika-minymata-symparastasis-apo-olo-tonkosmo&Itemid=287. 107. “Giorgos kai Manolis: PARONTES! Panevropaiko kima allileggyis” [Giorgos and Manolis: PRESENT! Pan-european solidarity wave], Golden Dawn, November 4, 2013. Accessed September 12, 2014, http://www.xryshaygh.com/index.php/enimerosi/view/giwrgos-kaimanwlhs-parontes-paneurwpaiko-kuma-allhlegguhs-fwtoreportaz; “Concentración frente a la embajada Griega,” ANR, November 6, 2013. Accessed September 15, 2014, http://accionnr. blogspot.com.es/2013/11/0911-concentracion-frente-la-embajada.html; “Giorgos kai Manolis: PARONTES! Synechizetai to panevropaiko kyma allileggyis” [Giorgos and Manolis: PRESENT! The pan-european solidarity wave continues], Golden Dawn, November 7, 2013.

218

Sofia Tipaldou

Accessed September 12, 2014, http://www.xryshaygh.com/index.php/enimerosi/view/giwrgoskai-manwlhs-parontes-sunechizetai-to-paneurwpaiko-kuma-sumparastash; “Synechizontai panevropaika oi ekdiloseis sybarastasis stin Chrysi Avgi—Fotoreportaz” [Expression of Solidarity to Golden Dawn Continue across All Europe—Photoreportage], Golden Dawn, November 11, 2013. Accessed September 12, 2014, http://www.xryshaygh.com/index.php/enimerosi/ view/sunechizontai-paneurwpaika-oi-ekdhlwseis-sumparastashs-sthn-chrush-augh-fwt; “Giorgos Fountoulis kai Manolis Kapelonis: ATHANATOI! Synechizontai oi ekdiloseis sybarastasis” [Giorgos Foundoulis and Manolis Kapelonis: IMMORTAL! Expressions of Solidarity continue], Golden Dawn, November 18, 2013. Accessed September 12, 2014, http://www. xryshaygh.com/index.php/enimerosi/view/giwrgos-kai-manwlhs-athanatoi-sunechizontai-oiekdhlwseis-sumparastashs-sth; “Ekdilosi allileggyis stin Chrysi Avgi stin Kolomvia—Video” [Solidarity Expression to Golden Dawn in Colombia—Video], Golden Dawn, December 17, 2013, http://www.xryshaygh.com/index.php/enimerosi/view/ekdhlwsh-allhlegguhs-sthnchrush-augh-sthn-kolombia-binteo. Accessed September 14, 2014; “Servia, Agglia, IPA: Synechizetai to kima sybarastasis pros tin Chrysi Avgi—Fotoreportaz” [Serbia, England, USA: The Solidarity Wave to Golden Dawn Continues—Photo Reportage], Golden Dawn, December 26, 2013. Accessed September 12, 2014, http://www.xryshaygh.com/index.php/enimerosi/ view/sunechizetai-mazika-to-kuma-sumparastashs-pros-thn-chrush-augh; “Poreia sybarastasis stin Chrysi Avgi apo tin Serbian Action sto Veligradi” [Solidarity demo to Golden Dawn from Serbian Action in Belgrade], Christos I. Pappas blog, December 28, 2013. Accessed September 20, 2014, http://xristospappas.blogspot.com.es/2013/12/serbian-action.html. 108. “Sybarastasi apo Evropeous Synagonistes gia ta adelfia mas” [Solidarity from European Co-fighters to Our Brothers], Ethnikisths123, November 2, 2013. Accessed September 14, 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faTb_GkLYck#t=31. 109. “Sto plevro tis Chrysis Avgis Ethnikistes apo Ouggaria kai Letonia” [Hungarian and Latvian Nationalists Stand on Golden Dawn’s Side], Golden Dawn, October 30, 2013. Accessed September 14, 2014, http://www.xryshaygh.com/index.php/enimerosi/view/sto-pleuroths-chrushs-aughs-ethnikistes-apo-thn-ouggaria-fwtoreportaz. 110. “Episodeia stin Souidia se ekdilosi sybarastasis sti Chrysi Avgi—Video” [Clashes in Sweden in Solidarity to Golden Dawn Demonstration—Video], Golden Dawn, November 14, 2013. Accessed September 14, 2014, http://www.xryshaygh.com/index.php/enimerosi/view/ epeisodia-sthn-souhdia-se-ekdhlwsh-sumparastashs-sth-chrush-augh-binteo. 111. “Giorgos kai Manolis: PARONTES! Synechizetai to panevropaiko kyma allileggyis” [Giorgos and Manolis: PRESENT! The Pan-European Solidarity Wave Continues], Golden Dawn, November 7, 2013. Accessed September 12, 2014, http://www.xryshaygh.com/index. php/enimerosi/view/giwrgos-kai-manwlhs-parontes-sunechizetai-to-paneurwpaiko-kumasumparastash. 112. “Synechizontai panevropaika oi ekdiloseis sybarastasis stin Chrysi Avgi—Fotoreportaz” [Solidarity activities to Golden Dawn continue across the whole Europe—Photo Reportage], Golden Dawn, November 11, 2013. Accessed September 12, 2014, http://www.xryshaygh. com/index.php/enimerosi/view/sunechizontai-paneurwpaika-oi-ekdhlwseis-sumparastashssthn-chrush-augh-fwt. 113. “Sinechizetai mazika to panevropaiko kyma sybarastasis pros tin Chrysi Avgi—Fotoreportaz [The Pan-European Solidarity Wave for Golden Dawn Continues Massively], Golden Dawn, December 3, 2013. Accessed September 14, 2014, http://www.xryshaygh.com/index. php/enimerosi/view/sunechizetai-to-paneurwpaiko-kuma-sumparastashs-pros-thn-chrush-augh -fwtore. 114. “Servoi opadoi: Filoi mas stin Ellada mono osoi ypostirizoun Chrysi Avgi” [Our Friends in Greece are Only the Supporters of Golden Dawn], Golden Dawn, October 24, 2013. Accessed September 14, 2014, http://www.xryshaygh.com/index.php/enimerosi/view/serboiopadoi-filoi-mas-sthn-ellada-mono-osoi-uposthrizoun-chrush-augh. 115. “Filathloi tis Latsio ksediplosan pano gia ta dyo nekra meli tis Chrysis Avgis” [Latsio Fans Unwrapped a Banner in Memory of the Two Dead Members of Golden Dawn], To Proto Thema, November 4, 2013. Accessed September 12, 2014, http://www.protothema.gr/world/ article/325110/filathloi-tis-latsio-xediplosan-pano-gia-ta-duo-nekra-meli-tis-hrusis-augis/.

The Dawning of Europe and Eurasia?

219

116. Varangian Guard, “Re: CasaPound Italy meets Golden Dawn at Conference in Rome,” posted April 12, 2013. Accessed October 14, 2014, https://www.stormfront.org/forum/ t1009335/. 117. G. Linardis, “I Evrasiatiki Enosi kai to geopolitiko symferon tis Elladas” [Eurasian Union and Greece’s geopolitical interest], Chrysi Avgi, November 19, 2014. Accessed November 22, 2014, http://www.xryshaygh.com/index.php/enimerosi/view/h-eurasiatikh-enwsh-kaito-gewpolitiko-sumferon-ths-elladas. 118. “APOKLEISTIKO: Varysimanti synentevksi me ton steno synergati tou Putin, Alexander Dugin.”

Part IV

Conclusion: The European Far Right at Moscow’s Service?

Chapter Ten

Far-Right Election Observation Monitors in the Service of the Kremlin’s Foreign Policy Anton Shekhovtsov

In his comparison of political systems in Russia and China, Ivan Krastev argues that “observed from afar, [the Russian regime] certainly looks like a democracy,” as it, in particular, “enjoys a democratic constitution, runs elections, has a multiparty political system, [and] has some free media.” 1 At the same time, all these democratic institutions are largely an authoritarian façade that is used to legitimize the regime both domestically and internationally. “Russia clearly has elections, but no rotation of power. . . . In the Russian system elections are used as the way to legitimize the lack of rotation.” 2 Electoral authoritarianism, according to Andreas Schedler, has today become “the modal type of political regime in the developing world”: A large number of political regimes in the contemporary world . . . have established the institutional façades of democracy . . . in order to conceal (and reproduce) harsh realities of authoritarian governance. [. . .] Electoral authoritarian regimes play the game of multiparty elections by holding regular elections for the chief executive and a national legislative assembly. Yet they violate the liberal-democratic principles of freedom and fairness so profoundly and systematically as to render elections instruments of authoritarian rule rather than “instruments of democracy.” 3

In the post-Soviet space, however, there have been a number of democratic attempts to confront electoral authoritarian regimes. These attempts are primarily associated with international election observer missions led by the 223

224

Anton Shekhovtsov

Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and its Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR). Since the mid1990s, these organizations have conducted numerous election observation missions, and their evaluation of the fairness, openness, and credibility of elections has become an important factor in assessing the level of democratization present in the political systems of the post-Soviet space. The significance of the international electoral observation missions led by the OSCE and ODIHR, as well as those of the European Union (EU) and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), increased even more following a series of “color revolutions” in Georgia (2003), Ukraine (2004), and Kyrgyzstan (2005). The “Rose Revolution” in Georgia in November 2003 was largely modeled on the Serbian “Bulldozer Revolution” that had led to the overthrow of Slobodan Milošević’s regime in 2000 and prevented pro-Russia Eduard Shevardnadze from “winning” the fraudulent presidential elections. After the “Rose Revolution,” Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime realized the threat that color revolutions posed to Russian domination in post-Soviet space and started taking countermeasures against international election observation missions whose conclusions about unfair electoral procedures played an important role in mobilizing societies against electoral fraud. Following Rick Fawn, three types of countermeasures or tactics exist: 1. “asserting that double standards exist in the process” and “advancing an alternative language for democratization”; 2. “establishing alternative mechanisms and practices for [international election observer missions] that aim to give legitimacy to that alternative conception of democracy”; 3. “using those tactics to deceive their own populations and undercut domestic opposition.” 4 This chapter deals with the second tactic, i.e., the consistent use of obviously pro-Russia or Russia-controlled monitors to legitimize controversial and/or unfair elections and, by doing so, assert Russian foreign policy interests in the post-Soviet space. This tactic is a typical example of “virtual politics”—a phenomenon conceptualized by Andrew Wilson as a “political manipulation” or “political technology.” 5 More specifically, this chapter focuses on the farright element of these “alternative” election observation missions—an element that is both pragmatic and ideological. First of all, the chapter discusses the history and activities of the most important organization: the Commonwealth of the Independent States–Election Monitoring Organization (CIS-EMO), that has been actively engaged in monitoring controversial elections in the post-Soviet space since 2004 and has pioneered the use of ideologically biased, far-right observers in

Far-Right Election Observation Monitors

225

their observation missions. Next, the chapter looks into two associated organizations and considers the ideological and organizational connections between them. COMMONWEALTH OF THE INDEPENDENT STATESELECTION MONITORING ORGANIZATION The history of CIS-EMO is closely linked to the figure of Aleksei Kochetkov, who headed the organization from 2004 until 2013. Kochetkov first rose to relative prominence in 1992 when he became editor of the Russkii poryadok (Russian Order), a newspaper of Russia’s most notorious fascist organization of that time, Russian National Unity (Russkoe natsional’noe edinstvo—RNE), led by Alexander Barkashov. 6 The RNE took an active role in the violent part of the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis—a conflict between then-President Boris Yeltsin and the group within the Russian parliament heavily influenced by Russian ultranationalists and led by then-vice president Alexander Rutskoi and the thenchairman of the parliament, Ruslan Khasbulatov. For a better understanding of the subsequent discussion, it should be noted that Rutskoi was one of the first leading Russian politicians to recognize, already in 1992, the “independence” of Transnistria, a breakaway region in Moldova that became “a transit point for regional enterprises in human trafficking, arms smuggling, and other illicit activities.” 7 Rutskoi’s support for Transnistria paid off, and around 150 fighters from Transnistria were involved in Rutskoi’s coup attempt in October 1993 in Moscow. 8 The RNE, too, was in contact with Transnistrian fighters, via Transnistria’s “minister of state security,” Vladimir Antyufeev (alias Vadim Shevtsov), who retained his links with the RNE’s leader Barkashov after 1993. 9 The conflict between Yeltsin and the parliament ended in the shelling and consequent storming of the parliamentary building, and hundreds of fighters of the RNE—twenty-two of them armed with machine guns provided by Khasbulatov 10—were involved in fighting with the police and army forces loyal to Yeltsin. Kochetkov, along with other members of the RNE, was arrested, but then granted amnesty in the beginning of 1994. In September 1995, Barkashov expelled several top members of the RNE, including Kochetkov, for alleged attempts at subversive activities in the organization, collaboration with the security services and political movements opposing the RNE. 11 In the second half of the 1990s, Kochetkov, like many former and actual members of Russian far-right groups, became a political consultant, promoting various candidates in elections at different levels in Russia. This work was hardly ideological; all that mattered was money, although Kochetkov did

226

Anton Shekhovtsov

indeed favor customers such as Sergei Baburin and Viktor Alksnis, 12 who not only participated in various far-right movements but had also been actively involved in the defense of the Russian parliament against pro-Yeltsin forces in October 1993. At the same time, Kochetkov maintained active contacts with Russian ultranationalists. As a member of the Russian Society of Friends of Saddam Hussein, an organization founded by neo-pagan, rightwing extremist Aleksei Andreev, Kochetkov visited Iraq in 1997 and published his pro-Iraqi and anti-U.S. report in Zavtra. 13 Founding the CIS-EMO was the joint idea of Kochetkov, his then-wife Marina Kochetkova, and yet another “political technologist,” Viktor Karmatsky. Marina Kochetkova did not have any political background, but, instead, had business acumen. Karmatsky was engaged in Yeltsin’s presidential campaign in 1996, managed relations between Yeltsin’s Presidential Administration and political parties in 1996–1997, and worked at the public relations office of the Ministry of Fuel and Energy in 1997–1999; he later resumed his “political technology” career. In September 2003, when CIS-EMO was founded in Nizhny Novgorod under the name “Autonomous Non-commercial Organisation for Monitoring Elections in CIS States,” 14 it was not yet obvious that the project would be a success. “Alternative mechanisms and practices” became relevant only after the “color revolutions” had taken place in Georgia and Ukraine, and Russian authorities became concerned with the perceived threat to Russia’s electoral authoritarianism posed by organizations such as OSCE and ODIHR. At that time Russia did have a state-controlled organization that was involved in monitoring elections: this was one of the functions of the Russia-dominated Interparliamentary Assembly of the CIS Member Nations (IPA CIS). However, its linkage to Russian foreign policy was too obvious, and, naturally, it did not have a reputation for independence and impartiality comparable to those of the OSCE or ODIHR. Moreover, Russia itself was a participating state of OSCE, and, while it had its grievances against its workings, 15 the Kremlin could not—at least at that time—straightforwardly challenge OSCE, not least because it was still trying to use it to weaken NATO. 16 CIS-EMO was formally a nongovernmental organization (NGO), but by no means could it be considered a serious alternative to OSCE/ODIHR. Nevertheless, the Russian authorities could capitalize on its NGO status to strengthen the “impartial image” of the IPA CIS. Kochetkov used his longtime contacts with Baburin, Alksnis, and others 17 to pitch the idea of CISEMO to the Russian authorities in 2003–2004. CIS-EMO presumably obtained funding from the Russian foreign policy budget—a clear indicator of the intended purposes. At that time Alksnis was a member of the Russian parliament, while Baburin became a deputy chair of the Russian parliament in the beginning of 2004. Karmatsky, who had several years of civil service

Far-Right Election Observation Monitors

227

experience, contributed to establishing the links between CIS-EMO and the authorities, too. However, the 2004 presidential election in Ukraine, which was one of the first observation missions for CIS-EMO, was almost a disaster for the organization. The election was marked by a political struggle between pro-Russian Viktor Yanukovych and pro-Western Viktor Yushchenko, and the Kremlin dispatched its best political consultants, including the “gray cardinal” Gleb Pavlovsky, to help the Yanukovych campaign. 18 Kochetkov himself acted as a political consultant to Yanukovych’s campaign team, openly supported his Party of Regions, and warned of possible Serbian and Georgian “scenarios” in Ukraine after the presidential election. 19 Yanukovych, who was then prime minister of Ukraine, and his highranking supporters used the advantages of administrative power to rig the election and “win” the second round. Yet the fraudulent nature of both rounds of the election was so obvious that even Dmitrii Rogozin, then the leader of the ultranationalist Rodina (Motherland) party’s faction in the Russian parliament, had to admit: These elections in Ukraine—its first round, as well as the second round— demonstrated that administrative leverage can do more harm than good. The administrative leverage destroyed the opportunities that Yanukovych could have seized had he not been prime minister. . . . Ukraine is doubtlessly facing a crisis of political power. International observers will unlikely declare these elections valid given the numerous violations that they have observed. 20

Rogozin was right; international observers from OSCE/ODIHR, the EU, PACE, and NATO Parliamentary Assembly all declined to declare the elections free and fair. However, the political stakes were high for the Kremlin, and the Russian authorities had to keep insisting on the legitimacy of Yanukovych’s “victory.” Vladimir Rushaylo, then chair of the executive committee of the CIS and head of the CIS observation mission, stated that some flaws and downsides “had not exerted a significant impact on the free expression of the voters’ will” and that “Ukraine’s presidential elections were legitimate, free, and fair.” 21 Kochetkov, as head of CIS-EMO, concurred. 22 In his turn, Putin declared that the OSCE’s negative conclusions were “inappropriate” and—turning to usual “whataboutism” 23—criticized the OSCE election observation missions in Afghanistan and Kosovo as well. 24 The Kremlin eventually failed to secure Yanukovych’s presidency, as Yushchenko won in the second presidential runoff in December 2004. Despite the CIS-EMO’s poor performance in Ukraine, its subsequent success was one of many other consequences of the “Orange Revolution,” as the Kremlin had to adapt its foreign and domestic policies to counter any perceived threats to Russia’s dominant position in what it considered to be Moscow’s legitimate sphere of influence. While CIS-EMO was technically

228

Anton Shekhovtsov

an NGO, it was intrinsically loyal to the Kremlin and very useful in promoting Moscow’s interests in post-Soviet space and in Europe. Since 2005, CIS-EMO has taken part in more than forty observation missions at elections in countries such as Azerbaijan, Estonia, France, Germany, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Poland, Russia, Turkey, and Ukraine, as well as in generally unrecognized, breakaway states such as Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Transnistria. CIS-EMO’s activities in each case depended on a particular objective implicitly assigned to the organization by the Russian authorities. The organization never gave direct support for a particular candidate or a party. When CIS-EMO observed “elections” or “referenda” in Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Transnistria—i.e., the “states” that Russia helped to separate from Georgia and Moldova to undermine the pro-Western aspirations of Tbilisi and Chisinau—the objective was simply to legitimize these plebiscites. In Estonia, on the other hand, a democratic member state of the EU that Russia had been trying to discredit, the objective was to draw attention to alleged discrimination against the Russian-speaking population and to dispute the democratic nature of electoral process. As CIS-EMO’s report on the 2011 parliamentary elections in Estonia concluded, its “observers [were] not warranted in maintaining that the electoral system and democratic institutions in Estonia fully conformed to the standards and requirements imposed on modern democratic states.” 25 In Turkey, where the Kremlin would want to diminish cooperation with NATO and the United States, CIS-EMO concluded that “in terms of economic recovery, the democratic Islamization on the basis of its own resources [had] turned out to be more efficient than the military administration under the aegis of NATO or following the principles of the ‘Washington consensus’ of the International Monetary Fund.” 26 In other words, the CIS-EMO’s conclusions always aligned with Russia’s foreign policy. As Jakob Hedenskog and Robert L. Larsson argue, Several of [CIS-EMO’s] observation missions have been controversial, as their findings have often been in sharp contradiction with the findings of other international organizations such as the OSCE, the Council of Europe, or the European Union. The CIS elections observation missions, which are often in fact purely Russian and which are labeled CIS in order to improve their legitimacy, are naturally often accused of being subservient to Kremlin foreign policy. 27

Therefore, CIS-EMO received support, in particular, from Russia’s Foreign Ministry. For example, when Kochetkov and his colleague were arrested in Moldova for a brawl in July 2005, 28 it was foreign minister Sergei Lavrov who called the arrest “an unacceptable act” and harshly linked the incident to the Transnistrian problem: “It looks like the Moldovan authorities are committed to do everything possible and impossible not only to block the

Far-Right Election Observation Monitors

229

Transnistrian reconciliation . . . but also damage Russian-Moldovan relations even further.” 29 One of the features of CIS-EMO is that they often invite election observers not only from the CIS states, but from the European Union too. This became possible after CIS-EMO was re-registered in Moscow in October 2005 under the cumbersome name “Autonomous Non-Commercial Organization ‘International Organization for Monitoring Elections CISEMO.’” Widening the scope of the organization’s activities allowed for observing elections outside the CIS and engaging international, i.e., non-CIS, monitors. These changes became key to the success of the CIS-EMO. Considering the CIS-EMO’s loyalty to the Kremlin, the choice of observers that CIS-EMO could involve in their observation missions has always been largely limited to two categories: eligible candidates would be either pro-Russian or willing to turn the blind eye to the organization’s pro-Russian orientation, but these categories are not necessarily mutually exclusive. As the analysis of the CIS-EMO international election observation teams shows, the majority of monitors—in terms of their ideological dispositions—have been actual or former members of pro-Russian, far-right and/or (far) left movements, groups, or organizations. The far-right element of CIS-EMO’s observation missions has been particularly visible. This can be explained by two factors. The first reason is both pragmatic and ideological. Kochetkov’s background in the fascist RNE and his own views determined specific ideological affiliations for the people he believed he could trust and, thus, engage in observation missions. There might also be an element of Kochetkov’s gratitude to and/or dependence on his original patrons, such as Baburin and Alksnis. Among the hundred or so CIS-EMO election monitors who made an unsuccessful, unauthorized trip to Moldova in March 2005 to observe the parliamentary elections, there were members of the People’s Will party led by Baburin and Alksnis, as well as of the far right, misleadingly named, Liberal-Democratic Party of Russia, headed by Vladimir Zhirinovsky, and the National-Bolshevik Party, headed by Eduard Limonov. 30 The ideological factor, however, was still important. Despite the fact that, by the time CIS-EMO was established, Kochetkov was not a member of any far-right organization, he still maintained right-wing views. At the same time, in the course of his work at CIS-EMO and under the influence of the individuals he worked with, Kochetkov seems to have shifted toward New Right and Eurasianist positions. 31 As a sign of this shift, the website of the Center for Monitoring Democratic Processes “Quorum” that he founded in 2008—and that merged with CIS-EMO—features four articles by New Right geopolitical theorist Tiberio Graziani, editor of the Italian journal Eurasia. In these articles, Graziani, fully conforming to Eurasianist principles, attacks “the hegemony of Washington on the Mediterranean Region,” condemns

230

Anton Shekhovtsov

“‘liberalist’ practices imposed by the U.S.” on Europe, and praises Russia as “the backbone of Eurasia” and “the keystone of the multipolar system.” 32 The second factor is related to the first and has to do with the EU-based organizations that, for several years, acted as major subcontractors for CISEMO recruiting international monitors for joint election observation missions: the Belgium-based Eurasian Observatory for Democracy and Elections and the Poland-based European Center for Geopolitical Analysis. The next two sections focus on these organizations. EURASIAN OBSERVATORY FOR DEMOCRACY AND ELECTIONS The Eurasian Observatory for Democracy and Elections (EODE) was founded by Belgian Luc Michel in 2007 as an electoral monitoring organization. Although it claimed to be “a non-aligned NGO,” its political affiliation and ideological dispositions suggest otherwise. Michel started his political life in his late teens and was a member of various fascist movements and groupuscules such as the Belgian Youth Front (Front de la jeunesse), French Federation of European and National Action (Fédération d’action nationale et européenne—FANE), Nationalist Front (Front Nationaliste 33), and some others. In 1984, he founded the Communitarian National-European Party (Parti Communautaire National-Européen— PCN). The ideology of the PCN can be termed as “national communist” 34 or National-Bolshevik, while the organization is an heir to the Communitarian National Party (Parti Communautaire National) founded in 1965 by JeanFrançois Thiriart, a Belgian convicted of collaboration during World War II and a dedicated postwar pan-European fascist. Michel was a personal secretary and close associate of Thiriart from 1982 until the latter’s death in 1992. 35 He is currently a keeper of Thiriart’s archive and editor of Editions Machiavel, a publishing house established by Thiriart in 1982. Following Thiriart, who, since the beginning of the 1980s, promoted an idea of the “Euro-Soviet Empire from Vladivostok to Dublin,” 36 Michel and his PCN have striven to create a pan-European movement that would unite and consolidate the extreme right and extreme left tendencies. Their main enemy was the United States and a “false ‘European’ project” that was said to be modeled on “Atlantism and Americano-Zionist imperialism.” Their ideal Europe was a “European State-Nation, republican, unitary, and socialist”; a Europe “liberated of Yankee colonialism”; a “Great-Europe, from Reykjavik to Vladivostok and from Quebec to the Sahara.” 37 Thiriart visited Moscow shortly before his death and took part in several meetings and round tables with the representatives of the so-called red-brown opposition to Yeltsin—the opposition that later would play an important role in Rutskoi’s coup attempt. After Thiriart’s death, Michel kept rather occa-

Far-Right Election Observation Monitors

231

sional contact with the Russian far right. Dugin and Prokhanov published Michel’s texts in their periodicals Elementy and Zavtra, respectively, while the two of them had a chance to meet Michel in 1996 at the “anti-mondialist” congress in Tripoli, 38 organized on the initiative of the late Muammar Gaddafi of whom Michel had been a longtime supporter. 39 After Dugin created, in 2003, his International Eurasianist Movement, the PCN welcomed the creation of this organization that was, in their point of view, fighting against “Yankee new colonialism, its ‘New World Order’ and its military force: NATO, Hollywood, McDonald’s, [and] Coca-Cola.” 40 The PCN’s message to the MED, fully in accordance with Thiriart’s ideas, put high hopes on Russia as a perceived major opponent of the United States: Only Russia . . . still has the demographic, geographic, and human resources to give Europe an alternative to the “New World Order.” Russia, just as before when it was called the Soviet Union, is the last free and independent country in Europe. We believe in the Russian mission in Europe in the twenty-first century. [. . .] For the Europe we fight for, the great and free Europe, from Vladivostok to Reykjavik, will indeed be the fourth Rome! Facing new Carthage-like America, the European Empire can only be a new Rome. With Moscow as a capital. Why not! 41

It was not until 2006, however, when Michel and his PCN established closer and more significant contacts with Russia. On September 17, 2006, Michel, as well as PCN’s General Secretary Fabrice Beaur and a member of the party’s political bureau, Jean-Pierre Vandersmissen, took part—at the invitation of CIS-EMO—in observing the “Transnistrian independence referendum.” In Tiraspol, they were joined by a cohort of other observers of whom many were far-right activists: Yves Bataille, leader of the right-wing extremist People’s Struggle Organization (Organisation Lutte du peuple); Pavel Zarifullin, then leader of Dugin’s Eurasianist Youth Movement, and his associates 42 ; Baburin and Alksnis, leaders of the far-right People’s Will; Natalya Narochnitskaya, an MP from Rogozin’s Rodina party; and Stefano Vernole and Alberto Ascari, editors of the Eurasia Coordination Project (Coordinamento Progetto Eurasia) website, among others. The referendum was not recognized by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the OSCE, or the EU, but the CISEMO’s international observers concluded that the referendum “complied with the national [i.e., Transnistrian] law, recognized principles and norms of organizing and holding democratic elections, the majority of which are equally applicable to democratic referenda.” 43 After the referendum, Michel praised Tiraspol’s anti-Americanism as “a healthy self-defense movement” and argued that “European views of Tiraspol” were reminiscent of those of

232

Anton Shekhovtsov

“‘European Communitarianism’—namely a Eurasian Greater Europe that is not limited to the small European Union and the ideological horizon of which stretches from the Atlantic to Vladivostok.” 44 The apparent financial success of the PCN’s observation mission in Transnistria and the deepening of the cooperation with CIS-EMO gave Michel the idea of establishing his own electoral monitoring organization. At first, Michel and Vandersmissen registered, in March 2007, an organization named “ECGA—Espace Francophone (Belgique-France-Suisse-Québec),” where “ECGA” stood for European Center of Geopolitical Analysis. This was the name of the organization that the Kochetkovs registered in July 2004. However, in August 2007, another organization was registered, the Eurasian Observatory for Democracy and Elections (EODE), with the aim of “promoting democracy (especially patterns of expression of direct democracy that fully exercise the power of the people)” and “controlling, monitoring and assessing the workings of democracy, especially electoral process and political, legal, and constitutional systems.” 45 PCN members Beaur and Vandersmissen became part of the EODE too. The launch of the EODE was heralded by the publication of Michel’s extensive report on Transnistria that was written, according to the author, “for the mission of expertise and analysis conducted by European lawyers” in Transnistria “under the direction of Mr. Patrick Brunot.” 46 Brunot, a lawyer who, in 1997, represented Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in a libel case against the French magazine Le Nouvel Observateur, is also known for his longtime sympathies toward and contacts with the Russian far right. In particular, he published a book of his conversations with Zhirinovsky, 47 while Rogozin wrote a preface to Brunot’s book on “the false friends of America.” 48 The EODE claims to be “committed to a multipolar world” and to “the unity of Eurasia, designed as geopolitical entity” within the multipolar world. 49 They trace its “Eurasian vision” back to the ideas of Thiriart and Michel—“the vision of EODE was born in early 1980, with the Euro-Soviet School of Geopolitics” 50—and argue that this vision “is now shared by many governmental and political spheres, including the current Russian leadership and V.V. Putin.” 51 The members of the EODE took part in several election observation missions in the territories occupied by Russian forces in order to destabilize the countries to which these territories formally belong. In 2007, Michel and Beaur—then as part of the Trans-European Dialogue’s international observation mission 52 —monitored the parliamentary elections in Abkhazia, a breakaway region of Georgia. Political parties loyal to late “president” Sergei Bagapsh won the elections. Commenting on them, Michel declared: “Today, we have become convinced that you have, indeed, a democratic state, while the information conveyed by Georgia does not correspond to the actual state of affairs.” 53 As a sign of gratitude, Bagapsh invited Michel and Kochetkova

Far-Right Election Observation Monitors

233

to his private birthday party. According to Michel, Grigore Mărăcuţă, a top Transnistrian politician, who was also present at Bagapsh’s birthday party, “hailed the memory of Jean Thiriart, the father of the Eurasian Greater Europe.” 54 Throughout its history, the EODE has cooperated, apart from CIS-EMO, with a few other election monitoring organizations, in particular with the European Center for Geopolitical Analysis, a longtime partner of CIS-EMO. Since 2012, the EODE has also cooperated with the International Expert Center for Electoral Systems (ICES) established in 2005 in Israel and headed by Alexander Tsinker. Through the ICES, the EODE sent Beaur, as well as Frank Creyelman and Johan Deckmyn from the Belgian far-right Flemish Interest (Vlaams Belang), to observe the 2012 parliamentary elections in Ukraine. In March 2014, when the EODE observed the illegitimate referendum on the independence of the Ukrainian Autonomous Republic of Crimea that was followed by the annexation of the region by Russia, Michel coordinated the organization’s activities with the European Center for Geopolitical Analysis and the Russia-based Civic Control Association (see below). CISEMO did not take part in the monitoring of the Crimean “referendum” because Kochetkov did not want to spoil his relations with Ukrainian politicians, hoping for beneficial cooperation with them in the future. 55 EUROPEAN CENTER FOR GEOPOLITICAL ANALYSIS Mateusz Piskorski, who founded the European Center for Geopolitical Analysis (Europejskie Centrum Analiz Geopolitycznych–ECAG) in 2007 in Poland, started his international election monitoring career in 2004 when he was sent to observe parliamentary elections in Belarus 56 by Andrzej Lepper, leader of the right-wing populist Self-Defense of the Republic of Poland (Samoobrona Rzeczpospolitej Polskiej). 57 According to the joint report of OSCE and ODIHR, the 2004 parliamentary elections in Belarus “fell significantly short of OSCE commitments,” while “the Belarusian authorities failed to create the conditions to ensure that the will of the people serves as the basis of the authority of government.” 58 Piskorski’s conclusion, however, was predictably affirmative: “There was nothing suggesting any violations.” 59 Piskorski’s political career did not start with Self-Defense, which he joined in 2002. In the late 1990s, he was an active member of the Association for Tradition and Culture Niklot, a neo-pagan, “metapolitical fascist” group that was influenced by the ideology of the Polish interwar neo-pagan fascist Zadruga movement. Apart from the indigenous Polish interwar influences, Niklot was inspired by völkisch ideology, writings of Italian fascist Julius Evola, and French New Right thinker Alain de Benoist. 60 The group was also

234

Anton Shekhovtsov

characterized by its Slavic ultranationalism and opposition to “the intermixture of cultures, languages, peoples, and races.” 61 Niklot published the neoNazi ’zines Odala and Wadera and actively recruited its members from skinhead and National Socialist Black Metal subcultures. 62 The following quote from one of Odala’s articles provides a telling glimpse into the ideology of Niklot: “Considering the decay and multiraciality of the West, only a united Slavdom—the northern empire of the rising sun—is the hope for the White Race and anyone in the West who does not support the Slavs betrays the White Race and himself.” 63 A neo-pagan, pro-Slavic worldview became an ideological link between Polish and Russian neo-Nazis. By invitation of Pavel Tulaev, head of the Russia-based far-right Cultural Exchange Association, former co-editor of the journal Nasledie predkov (Ancestral Heritage) 64 and co-editor of the neopagan racist journal Ateney, Piskorski and Niklot’s Marcin Martynowski, as well as members of other Polish neo-Nazi groups, paid their first visit to Russia in August 2000. They held meetings with leaders of several Russian far-right organizations to discuss prospects of cooperation between the two countries. Stressing their Slavic ultranationalism, the Polish visitors expressed their concerns about the German influence in Poland. As Piskorski summed up in his article for the Russian newspaper Ya—russkiy (I am Russian), “What is now going on between Poland and Germany is not a fair and open war, but a covert German economic invasion, inherently a kike method of penetration.” 65 In the beginning of the 2000s, Niklot was successful in infiltrating established political parties and often joined protests alongside Self-Defense. This was a point of entry for Piskorski and some of Niklot’s top members, including Martynowski, into the party. Piskorski rapidly progressed up the career ladder and became an important ideologue of Self-Defense and the party’s international relations officer. It was apparently through Piskorski that representatives of Self-Defense took part in a conference of “European Environmental, Peace, and Alternative Movements” co-organized by the PCN and held in the Villepinte suburb of Paris in 2003, 66 presumably the first contact between Piskorski and Michel. Initial contacts between Piskorski and Dugin were established by 2004, when Piskorski and Zarifullin observed the 2004 parliamentary elections in Belarus. Piskorski and Martynowski visited Moscow in 2005. In particular, they discussed the creation of the Polish branch of the MED, but this project was never fully implemented. A more fruitful result of Piskorski’s contacts with Russian nationalists was his visit to Transnistria as an observer of the parliamentary elections in December 2005. At a press conference of international observers, Piskorski declared that he would do everything to convince the Polish authorities to recognize Transnistria as an independent state. 67 Piskorski’s trip to Transnistria and his statement provoked a scandal in Po-

Far-Right Election Observation Monitors

235

land. Consequently, Self-Defense’s leader, Andrzej Lepper, who—following the party’s success at the 2005 parliamentary elections that made it the thirdlargest party in the Polish parliament—aimed at securing the position of deputy prime minister, threatened to expel Piskorski from Self-Defense for his visit to, and behavior in, Transnistria. 68 In all other respects, however, the Transnistrian trip was beneficial to Piskorski as it was his first experience working with CIS-EMO. 69 Piskorski cooperated with CIS-EMO for several years and built a variety of contacts with Russian officials. In 2007, he decided—similarly to Luc Michel—to register his own organization that would offer electoral monitoring service to the interested parties. His organization, the European Center for Geopolitical Analysis, featured several Self-Defense members, including Martynowski, Konrad Rękas, and Marcin Domagała, as well as Polish rightwingers such as Przemysław Sieradzan and Kornel Sawiński, who would later become representatives of Dugin’s Eurasianist Movement in Poland. 70 In 2009, there was an attempt to expand the ECAG internationally, and, in addition to the preexisting organization in Russia, a branch of the European Center of Geopolitical Analysis was established in Germany under the management of Piotr Luczak, a member of the left-wing Die Linke party. In its promotional booklet, the ECAG, as an international structure, did not conceal its Russo-centric nature. It claimed that their “monitoring services [had] been already twice highly estimated by the Central Electoral Commission of Russian Federation,” while its intended activities as a “Euro-Russian dialogue platform” included “publishing articles and/or interviews in Russian journals and on Russian websites, publishing books in Russian translation, participating in conferences, seminars, and round tables in Russia, [and] giving interviews for the main Russian mass media.” 71 However, this international expansion of the ECAG proved unsuccessful, as the German branch eventually became an independent organization (Europäisches Zentrum für Geopolitische Analyse e.V.) in 2011, while the Russian organization was essentially CIS-EMO under a different name. The ECAG provided over twenty monitors for the CIS-EMO observation mission at the 2010 presidential election in Ukraine. Apart from the functionaries of the ECAG (Piskorski, Domagała, Sawiński, Rękas), more than half of the Polish component of the mission consisted of actual and former members of Self-Defense (including Lepper) and the far-right League of Polish Families (Liga Polskich Rodzin–LPR). Both far-right parties were minor coalition partners of Jarosław Kaczyński’s national-conservative Law and Justice, which ruled Poland in 2006–2007. Moreover, Marian Szołucha, who was then vice president of the ECAG, was close to the All-Polish Youth (Młodzież Wszechpolska), a youth organization that was for some time affiliated with the LPR, so he could engage its members in observation missions.

236

Anton Shekhovtsov

The ECAG and CIS-EMO, however, have dramatically reduced cooperation since 2010–2011. Both Piskorski and Kochetkov explained the break in a similar manner. Piskorski referred to Kochetkov’s right-wing extremist “past”: “several people in Russia warned us that Kochetkov does not serve our reputation well. [That is] concerning his past.” Kochetkov, in his turn, explained that Piskorski would bring to their electoral observation missions “rather suspicious company—leftists, neo-fascists.” 72 However, the true reasons for the break were competition for Russian funding and a conflict over personal issues. Moreover, in 2011, another Russian electoral monitoring organization, the Civic Control Association, started playing a more significant role in coordinating—and, hence, distributing funds for—international observers at dubious elections. Civic Control is what can be called a “GONGO,” i.e., a government-organized non-governmental organization, as the groups that compose this association are loyal to the Kremlin, while the key figures in the management of the association are members of—or, at least, closely associated with—the Russian parliament and the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation. 73 Interestingly, one of the groups that comprise the association, “For Democracy and Rights of Peoples,” lists Piskorski and Béla Kovács of the Hungarian radical right-wing Jobbik party among its experts. 74 The objective of Civic Control is to legitimize and declare fair controversial elections, to criticize the results of international monitoring missions from democratic institutions such as the OSCE, and, occasionally, to disapprove of the electoral procedures in democratic countries such as the United States. For example, the preliminary report of the Civic Control on the 2012 U.S. presidential election concluded: “no single generally recognized principle of the democratic elections is fully observed in the United States, except for one—regularity of elections.” 75 As a consequence of the breakup between the ECAG and CIS-EMO, they started sending separate missions to elections. Since 2011, the backbone of the ECAG’s observation missions has been a combination of far-right and left-wing political forces. The far-right element consisted of members of the LPR, Jobbik, Flemish Interest, British National Party (BNP), Party for Freedom (Partij voor de Vrijheid), Social Movement Social Movement—Tricolor Flame (Movimento Sociale—Fiamma Tricolore), Ataka, and individual right-wing activists. The left-wing element was represented largely by the German Die Linke party. After observing the 2011 parliamentary elections in Russia, which the OSCE characterized as not meeting “the necessary conditions for fair electoral competition,” 76 Jobbik’s Béla Kovács presented a report produced by his team of monitors that concluded that the elections “had been held in compliance with the international electoral standards.” 77 Nick Griffin, then leader of the BNP, who was a member of the ECAG’s observation missions in Russia (2011) 78 and Ukraine (2012), praised these

Far-Right Election Observation Monitors

237

“young democracies” and expectedly attacked electoral procedures in the UK: [In Russia], I was stunned to discover instead a robust, transparent, and properly democratic system that made me even more aware than ever of the truly shocking failings of the archaic and corrupted shambles that masquerades as free and fair elections in Great Britain. 79 The systems and checks and balances in place in Ukraine are hugely superior to the undemocratic farce that would make Britain an international laughing stock if the reality was exposed. 80

Griffin was not the only observer who referred to Russia’s “robust, transparent, and properly democratic system” in order to criticize the democratic workings in their home countries. After observing the 2012 presidential election in Russia, Ewald Stadler of the radical right-wing Alliance for the Future of Austria (Bündnis Zukunft Österreich) stated, “The elections in the Russian Federation were conducted fully in accordance with democratic standards. There was no single election poster of any candidate by the polling stations, while in Austria this is happening very often.” 81 Acting independently from CIS-EMO in the recent years, but often coordinating its activities with the EODE, the ECAG has now directly cooperated with the Russian organizations, in particular, Civic Control. It was Civic Control headed by Alexander Brod, who is, ironically, also head of the Moscow Bureau for Human Rights, that entrusted the ECAG and EODE with drawing up the main list of international observers for the Crimean “referendum” in March 2014; then this list was passed to the Crimean parliament that officially issued invitations to prospective election monitors. The international observation mission consisted of—as Russian political scientist Dmitrii Oreshkin put it—“trusted people who would not question its results.” 82 These “trusted people” included both Michel and Piskorski, as well as other members of European far-right organizations such as Jobbik, Flemish Interest, Attack, Tricolor Flame, National Front, Freedom Party of Austria, Northern League, and Platform for Catalonia (Plataforma per Catalunya) among others. A number of left-wing (Die Linke and the Communist Party of Greece) and pro-Russian (Latvian Russian Union) “trusted people” observed the “referendum” too. CONCLUSION As Putin’s regime perceived the “color revolutions” in Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan as a Western, U.S.-led conspiracy against Russia’s domination in the post-Soviet space, the Kremlin became genuinely concerned with independent international election observation missions, whose findings played

238

Anton Shekhovtsov

an important role in mobilizing societies against fraudulent elections. The Kremlin has therefore supported “alternative mechanisms and practices” that are aimed at legitimizing elections in the post-Soviet space that organizations such as OSCE and ODIHR would unlikely consider free, fair, or, in some cases, even legal. Formally an NGO, CIS-EMO became one of the most important alternative organizations that legitimized practices of electoral authoritarianism and always remained loyal to the objectives of Russia’s foreign policy in the post-Soviet space. Hardly surprisingly, the findings of CIS-EMO observation missions often contradicted those of the OSCE and ODIHR. As Nicu Popescu asserted, “The Russian authorities [had] been boosting a CIS election monitoring organization (CIS-EMO) whose verdicts for elections conducted in the CIS [had] always been diametrically opposed to OSCE opinions on the elections.” 83 A salient characteristic of CIS-EMO and the organizations through which it invited election observers outside the post-Soviet space, namely the Belgium-based EODE and Poland-based ECAG, is that they were all established by former and actual members of far-right organizations. The heads of these organizations have a positive view of Putin’s regime and Russia’s foreign policy, as they are heavily influenced by ideologies—first and foremost, Eurasianism, National-Bolshevism, and Slavic ultranationalism—that praise Russia as a major anti-American and generally anti-Western power challenging the postwar liberal-democratic status quo. Thus, these election monitoring organizations are ideologically predisposed to take pro-Russian viewpoints and never confront practices of electoral authoritarianism. Moreover, the EODE’s and ECAG’s election observation missions are predominantly comprised of members of radical right-wing movements and parties from across Europe. Other elements of these missions are representatives of openly pro-Russian and left-wing political forces that support the allegedly antiglobalist (in effect, anti-American) agenda of the Kremlin. Russian media rarely, if ever, mention ideological stances or political affiliations of far-right international observers engaged in monitoring elections. When referring to the monitors’ favorable evaluations of controversial elections, they are usually presented as simply “international observers” or “experts” from particular countries. Some of them (for example, Michel and Ascari) are misleadingly presented as “members of the European Parliament” 84—a false description aimed at giving a greater degree of credibility to their words. It should also be noted that Kochetkov, Michel, and Piskorski have gone beyond their activities as heads of international election monitoring organizations and have performed other services to the Russian authorities. Kochetkov and Stanislav Byshok, a member of the Russian neo-Nazi Russian Image (Russkii obraz) group and an employee of CIS-EMO, have published books

Far-Right Election Observation Monitors

239

aimed at discrediting democratic processes in Ukraine. 85 Michel and Piskorski are often invited to conferences, discussion tables, and other events in Russia to reinforce pro-Kremlin and anti-Western narratives. Piskorski has also become a regular commentator for Russian state-controlled media such as Russia Today (or RT), the Voice of Russia, and Sputnik. Despite the fact that Russian authorities often accused the OSCE of having double standards and “losing credibility,” 86 this organization remains an important reference point for the Russian authorities, Russian media, and some of the loyal election observation organizations. For example, CIS-EMO and the EGAC—in pursuit of their legitimation and respectability—have taken part in a number of OSCE Human Dimension meetings and seminars open to any NGO. Participation in the OSCE’s events—widely publicized on CIS-EMO’s and ECAG’s websites—is aimed at creating an illusion that both organizations are mainstream NGOs interested in fair observation of elections. The EODE, on the other hand, renounces the OSCE by contrasting “the Western NGOs sponsored by the OSCE, the EU and the United States” with “non-aligned NGOs, claiming a scientific and neutralist monitoring.” 87 Considering Michel’s attitude toward the OSCE, it is particularly absurd that the state-controlled Russia-24 news TV channel, when reporting on the Crimean “referendum” in March 2014, deceitfully presented Michel as “the organizer of the OSCE observation mission in Crimea”! 88 This imposturous presentation of Michel to the Russian-speaking audience reveals the high status value of the OSCE even in the generally anti-Western context. NOTES 1. Ivan Krastev, “Is China More Democratic than Russia?” Open Democracy, March 12, 2013. Accessed February 2, 2015, https://www.opendemocracy.net/od-russia/ivan-krastev/ischina-more-democratic-than-russia. 2. Ibid. 3. Andreas Schedler, “The Logic of Electoral Authoritarianism,” in Electoral Authoritarianism: The Dynamics of Unfree Competition, ed. Andreas Schedler (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2006), 1, 3. 4. Rick Fawn, “Battle Over the Box: International Election Observation Missions, Political Competition, and Retrenchment in the Post-Soviet Space,” International Affairs 82 (2006): 1133. 5. See Andrew Wilson, Virtual Politics: Faking Democracy in the Post-Soviet World (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005). 6. Vyacheslav Likhachev and Vladimir Pribylovsky, Russkoe Natsional’noe Edinstvo, vol. 1, Istoriya i ideologiya, 1990–2000 (Stuttgart: Ibidem-Verlag, 2005), 27. On the RNE also see: Sven Gunnar Simonsen, “Alexander Barkashov and Russian National Unity: Blackshirt Friends of the Nation,” Nationalities Papers 24 (1996): 625–39; Stephen D. Shenfield, Russian Fascism: Traditions, Tendencies, Movements (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2001), especially the chapter “Barkashov and the Russian National Unity,” 113–89; Mikhail Sokolov, “Russian National Unity: An Analysis of the Political Style of a Radical-Nationalist Organization,” Russian Politics and Law 46 (2008): 66–79. 7. Janusz Bugajski, Cold Peace: Russia’s New Imperialism (Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2004), 107. Although Russia played a significant role in Transnistria’s separation from

240

Anton Shekhovtsov

Moldova, it has never recognized its independence. As of late 2014, Transnistria has only been recognized by three other “states” with limited recognition of their own: Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Nagorno-Karabakh. 8. Stuart J. Kaufman and Stephen R. Bowers, “Transnational Dimensions of the Transnistrian Conflict,” Nationalities Papers 26 (1998): 131, 136. 9. Ibid., 137. 10. Likhachev and Pribylovsky, Russkoe Natsional’noe Edinstvo, 35. 11. Ibid., 64; Vasiliy Avchenko, “Nablyudateli spetsial’nogo naznacheniya,” Vladivostok, October 4, 2006. 12. Interview with Oleh Vernik, a former employee of CIS-EMO (2004–2013), conducted in Kyiv on September 12, 2014. 13. Aleksei Kochetkov, “Nash brat Irak,” Zavtra, June 9, 1997, 5. 14. For formal reasons, it was originally registered in the name of Aleksei Kamrakov. Since he resided in Nizhny Novgorod, it was convenient for the directors to submit tax reports through him. Kamrakov remained a formal director of the organization until 2005 when it was re-registered in Moscow in the names of Kochetkov and Karmatsky. Karmatsky remained an official co-director of the organization until 2006 when it was taken over by the Kochetkovs. 15. In January 2003, Russia even decided not to extend the mandate of the OSCE Assistance Group to Chechnya; see Anna Politkovskaya, “Profanatsiya Evropy,” Novaya gazeta, January 9, 2003, 2. Furthermore, after the start of the “Orange Revolution” in Ukraine, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov published an article arguing that the OSCE had “stopped being a forum uniting states and peoples” and was “starting to contribute to their division.” Consequently, Lavrov stated that Russia was “offering a clear-cut program for OSCE reform.” See Sergei Lavrov, “Reform Will Enhance the OSCE’s Relevance,” Financial Times, November 28, 2004. 16. See Janusz Bugajski, Dismantling the West: Russia’s Atlantic Agenda (Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2009), 65. 17. Interview with Oleh Vernik. 18. On the “Orange Revolution,” see Andrew Wilson, Ukraine’s Orange Revolution (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005). 19. Tatyana Ivzhenko, “Prezumptsiya vinovnosti. Zapad mozhet ne priznat’ itogi predstoyashchikh vyborov prezidenta na Ukraine,” Nezavisimaya gazeta, August 23, 2004, 6. 20. “Ukraina raskololas’ po Dnepru,” Vremya novostei, November 23, 2004, 2. 21. Olga Klyueva, “Nablyudateli ot SNG nazyvayut vybory v Ukraine chestnymi i otkrytymi,” Podrobnosti, November 1, 2004. Accessed February 2, 2015, http://podrobnosti.ua/ podrobnosti/2004/11/01/156053.html. 22. Viktor Tolokin, “Oranzhevaya oppozitsiya rastoptala zakon,” Pravda, November 25, 2004, 1. 23. On the rhetorical tactic of whataboutism, see “Whataboutism,” The Economist, January 31, 2008. Accessed February 2, 2015, http://www.economist.com/node/10598774. 24. Andrey Kolesnikov, “Vladimir Putin nauchil Evropu ukrainskoy demokratii,” Kommersant Daily, November 24, 2004, 2. 25. “Otchet o monitoringe vyborov v Riigikogu (parlament) Estonii 6 marta 2011 goda Mezhdunarodnoy organizatsii po nablyudeniyu za vyborami CIS-EMO,” Quorum, March 7, 2011. Accessed February 2, 2015, http://www.cmdp-kvorum.org/news/materials/904. 26. “Ekspertnaya otsenka monitoringovoy gruppy CIS-EMO po itogam parlamentskikh vyborov v Turtsii 12 iyunya 2011 goda,” Quorum, June 17, 2011. Accessed February 2, 2015, http://www.cmdp-kvorum.org/news/center/924. 27. Jakob Hedenskog and Robert L. Larsson, Russian Leverage on the CIS and the Baltic States (Stockholm: Totalförsvarets Forskningsinstitut, 2007), 26. 28. The Moldovan authorities never accredited CIS-EMO to observe any elections in their country. In March 2005, CIS-EMO monitors were deported from Moldova, where they went to illegitimately observe the parliamentary elections. In July of that year, Kochetkov and his colleague went to Moldova apparently to monitor—again, without any accreditation—the Chisinau mayoral election. See Vladimir Solov’yov, “Moldaviya vytyanula rossiyskuyu notu,” Kommersant Daily, July 13, 2005, 10.

Far-Right Election Observation Monitors

241

29. “Sergei Lavrov zhestko prokommentiroval zaderzhanie moldavskimi vlastyami rossiyskikh grazhdan,” Pervyi kanal, July 13, 2005. Accessed February 2, 2015, http://www.1tv.ru/ news/world/53563. 30. Denis Usov, “Moldavskiy gambit,” Novyi Peterburg, March 17, 2005. Usov is a member of the People’s Will party. On Zhirinovsky’s party, see Shenfield, Russian Fascism, especially the chapter “Zhirinovsky and the Liberal-Democratic Party of Russia,” 85–112; Andreas Umland, “The Fascism of Vladimir Zhirinovskii: Political Religion and the Rise of the LiberalDemocratic Party of Russia in the Early 1990s,” Religion Compass 4 (2010): 757–70; Anton Shekhovtsov and Andreas Umland, “Vladimir Zhirinovsky and the LDPR,” Russian Analytical Digest, no. 102 (2011): 14–16. On Limonov’s party, see Shenfield, Russian Fascism, especially the chapter “Dugin, Limonov, and the National-Bolshevik Party,” 190–219; Markus Mathyl, “The National-Bolshevik Party and Arctogaia: Two Neo-Fascist Groupuscules in the PostSoviet Political Space,” Patterns of Prejudice 36 (2002): 62–76. 31. On the New Right see Roger Griffin, “Interregnum or Endgame? The Radical Right in the ‘Post-Fascist’ Era,” Journal of Political Ideologies 5 (2000): 163–78; Alberto Spektorowski, “The New Right: Ethno-regionalism, Ethno-pluralism, and the Emergence of a Neo-Fascist ‘Third Way,’” Journal of Political Ideologies 8 (2003): 111–30; Tamir Bar-On, Where Have All the Fascists Gone? (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2007). On Eurasianism, see Dmitry Shlapentokh, ed., Russia between East and West: Scholarly Debates on Eurasianism (Boston, MA: Brill, 2007); Marlene Laruelle, Russian Eurasianism: An Ideology of Empire (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008). 32. See Tiberio Graziani, “Russia Keystone of the Multipolar System,” Quorum, June 10, 2010. Accessed February 2, 2015, http://www.cmdp-kvorum.org/en/news/center/732; idem, “Geopolitics in Republican Italy—A Limited Sovereignty Country,” Quorum, August 2, 2010. Accessed February 2, 2015, http://www.cmdp-kvorum.org/en/news/center/796; idem, “The Mediterranean and Central Asia: The Hinges of Eurasia,” Quorum, May 30, 2011. Accessed February 2, 2015, http://www.cmdp-kvorum.org/en/news/center/921; idem, “The Economic Crisis of the Western System. A Geopolitical Approach,” Quorum, May 28, 2009. Accessed February 2, 2015, http://www.cmdp-kvorum.org/en/news/center/186. 33. The full name of this organization is simultaneously French and Flemish: Front Nationaliste/Nationalistisch Front. 34. Jeffrey M. Bale, “‘National Revolutionary’ Groupuscules and the Resurgence Of ‘LeftWing’ Fascism: The Case of France’s Nouvelle Résistance,” Patterns of Prejudice 36 (2002): 39. 35. “Who Is Luc Michel?” Parti Communautaire National-européen. Accessed February 2, 2015, http://www.pcn-ncp.com/editos/en/bio.htm; Martin A. Lee, The Beast Reawakens (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1997), 479. 36. See Jean Thiriart, L’empire Euro-Sovietique de Vladivostok à Dublin l’après-Yalta. La mutation du communisme. Essai sur le totalitarisme éclairé (Charleroi: Editions Machiavel, 1984). 37. “Their ‘Europe’ Is Not Ours: PCN-NCP, the Party of the Unitary and Communitarian Europe, Says ‘No’ to the American False Europe of NATO and Capitalism!’” Nation-Europe, no. 43 (May 2005): 39. 38. Alexander Dugin, “Liviyskie impressii: po sledam poezdki v Dzhamakhiriyu,” Evraziya, March 1, 2011, http://evrazia.org/article/1590. Also present at the congress in Tripoli was Ruslan Khasbulatov. 39. Pierre-André Taguieff, La judéophobie des Modernes: Des Lumières au Jihad mondial (Paris: Jacob, 2008), 638; Jean-Yves Camus, “Les amis de la Libye: rendez-vous estival à Paris,” Actualité juive, no. 807 (July 2003). 40. “The Eurasian Vision of Another Europe!” Nation-Europe, no. 43 (May 2005): 46. 41. Ibid. 42. They were Leonid Savin, Alexander Bovdunov, and Alexander Proselkov. The latter was killed in summer 2014 in Eastern Ukraine where he—like many other Russian far-right activists—went to fight against the Ukrainian authorities.

242

Anton Shekhovtsov

43. “Mezhdunarodnye nablyudateli prinyali zaklyuchenie po itogam referenduma v Pridnestrovye. Polnyi tekst,” Regnum, September 17, 2006. Accessed February 2, 2015, http://www. regnum.ru/news/polit/706323.html. 44. “Etudes de Luc Michel,” Parti Communautaire National-européen, http://www.pcnncp.com/editos/fr/ed-061218-1.htm. 45. See the website of Direction de l’information légale et administrative: http://www. journal-officiel.gouv.fr. 46. Luc Michel, La “Pridnestrovskaia Moldavskaia Respublika” (PMR): Construction d’un nouvél état européen et expérience de démocratie directe (Brussels: EODE, 2007). 47. Vladimir Jirinovski [Zhirinovsky] and Patrick Brunot, Jirinovski m’a dit . . . (Paris: [self-published], 1995). 48. Patrick Brunot, Les Faux Amis de l’Amérique (Coulommiers: Dualpha, 2006). 49. “Contact,” Eurasian Observatory for Democracy and Elections, http://www.eode.org/ contact/. 50. “EODE: A Non-Aligned NGO!” Eurasian Observatory for Democracy and Elections, February 10, 2013. Accessed February 2, 2015, http://www.eode.org/eode-a-non-aligned-ngo/. 51. “Contact,” http://www.eode.org/contact/. 52. The Trans-European Dialogue was a short-lived organization founded in 2007 and headed by Marina Kochetkova. The initial aim of founding another election monitoring organization was to move away from the CIS-EMO’s disrepute. To present the Trans-European Dialogue as an organization separate from CIS-EMO, Kochetkova even used her maiden name, Klebanovich, in official documents. 53. Ekaterina Pol’gueva, “Garantii prav obespecheny,” Sovetskaya Rossiya, March 6, 2007, 3. 54. Luc Michel, “Private Reception for the Birthday of the Abkhazian President,” Facebook, May 30, 2011. Accessed February 2, 2015, https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a. 227941727216728.68471.137004106310491. 55. Interview with Oleh Vernik. 56. Rafał Pankowski, “Poseł ze swastyką w podpisie,” Gazeta Wyborcza, January 23, 2006, 17. 57. For a discussion of Self-Defense’s ideology and the terms used to describe it, see Rafał Pankowski, The Populist Radical Right in Poland: The Patriots (London: Routledge, 2010), 135–46. 58. OSCE/ODIHR, Republic of Belarus. Parliamentary Elections. 17 October 2004. OSCE/ ODIHR Election Observation Mission. Final Report (Warsaw: OSCE/ODIHR, 2004), 1. 59. Pankowski, “Poseł ze swastyką w podpisie,” 17. 60. “Mittendrin: Rechtspopulistische Parteien in Mittelosteuropa” [Interview with Bartek Pytlas], Religionswissenschaftlicher Medien- und Informationsdienst, June 30, 2014, http:// www.remid.de/blog/2014/06/mittendrin-rechtspopulistische-parteien-in-mittelosteuropa/; Marta Zimniak-Hałajko, “Kultura słowiańska jako alternatywna,” Przegląd Humanistyczny, no. 4 (2009): 116. 61. “Jesienny zaciąg Leppera,” Newsweek, October 6, 2002. Accessed February 2, 2015, http://polska.newsweek.pl/jesienny-zaciag-leppera,25460,1,3.html. 62. Rafał Pankowski and Marcin Kornak, “Poland,” in Racist Extremism in Central and Eastern Europe, ed. Cas Mudde (London: Routledge, 2005), 154. 63. Rafał Pankowski, “Polish Antisemite Takes Charge of Education,” Searchlight, July 2006, 33. 64. The name of the journal is a clear reference to Ahnenerbe (Ancestral Heritage), an institute in Nazi Germany that focused on the history of the Aryan race. 65. Mateusz Piskorski, “Bratskaya Pol’sha,” Ya—russkii, no. 51 (September 2000). 66. Mateusz Piskorski, Samoobrona RP w polskim systemie partyjnym. Rozprawa doktorska (Poznań: Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza, 2010), 386. 67. Alena Get’manchuk, “Pridnestrov’ye ‘obnovilos.’” OBSE protiv,” Zerkalo nedeli, no. 49 (2005). 68. Pankowski, The Populist Radical Right in Poland, 150.

Far-Right Election Observation Monitors

243

69. Michał Kacewicz and Michał Krzymowski, “Euroazjaci w Warszawie,” Newsweek, January 15, 2013. Accessed February 2, 2015, http://swiat.newsweek.pl/euroazjaci-wwarszawie,100369,1,1.html. 70. “Polyaki podderzhali Rossiyu,” Evraziiskii Soyuz Molodyozhi, http://www.rossia3.ru/ politics/foreign/polyakizaosetiu. 71. European Center of Geopolitical Analysis (Moscow: 2009), 2. 72. Kacewicz and Krzymowski, “Euroazjaci w Warszawie.” 73. The Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation was established in 2005, supposedly to provide intercommunication between the state and society. According to Krastev, however, the creation of the Civic Chamber aimed at controlling Russia’s NGOs, and it was “political technologist” Gleb Pavlovsky who had “urged the Kremlin to adopt new legislation that would create” this new body. Ivan Krastev, “Democracy’s ‘Doubles,’” Journal of Democracy 17 (2006): 57. Thus, the creation of the Civic Chamber seems to be one of the Kremlin’s responses to the “color revolutions” in Georgia and Ukraine, where independent NGOs played an important role in mobilizing the protests against the electoral fraud. 74. “Nashi eksperty,” Za demokratiyu i prava narodov. Accessed February 2, 2015, http:// pravanarodov.ru 75. Promezhutochnyi otchet o rezul’tatakh distantsionnogo monitoringa vyborov Prez. identa SShA 6 noyabrya 2012 goda (Moscow: Grazhdanskiy kontrol’, 2012), 53. 76. OSCE/ODIHR, Russian Federation, State Duma Elections, 4 December 2011: Final Report (Warsaw: OSCE/ODIHR, 2012), 1. 77. Maksim Dronov, “Mezhdunarodnye nablyudateli nazvali vybory ‘chestnymi i demokraticheskimi,’” Moskovskii komsomolets, December 7, 2011, 2. 78. Officially, Griffin was invited to Russia by Civic Control. 79. “Russian Elections ‘Much Fairer than Britain’s’: Initial Verdict from Nick Griffin,” British National Party, December 9, 2011. Accessed February 2, 2015, http://www.bnp.org.uk/ news/national/russian-elections-%E2%80%9Cmuch-fairer-britain%E2%80%99s%E2%80%9 D-%E2%80%93-initial-verdict-nick-griffin. 80. “Ukraine Elections Put Britain’s to Shame,” British National Party, November 20, 2012. Accessed February 2, 2015, http://www.bnp.org.uk/news/national/ukraine-elections-putbritains-shame. 81. Maksim Makarychev, “Ne nado pouchat’ Rossiiu,” Rossiiskaya gazeta, March 8, 2012, 3. 82. Anastasiya Kornya and Polina Khimshiashvili, “Osoboe priglashenie,” Vedomosti, March 14, 2014. 83. Nicu Popescu, “Russia’s Soft Power Ambitions,” CEPS Policy Brief, no. 115 (2006): 2. 84. See “V Pridnestrov’ye nakanune referenduma spokoyno, otmechayut nablyudateli,” RIA Novosti, September 16, 2006. Accessed February 2, 2015, http://ria.ru/politics/20060916/ 53957224.html; “Pridnestrov’ye sdelalo shag v storonu Rossii,” Sankt-Peterburgskie vedomosti, September 19, 2006, 3. 85. See, for example, Stanislav Byshok and Aleksei Kochetkov, Evromaidan imeni Stepana Bandery. Ot demokratii k diktature (Moscow: Knizhny mir, 2014). This book, in particular, exaggerates the role that Ukrainian far-right groups played during the Ukrainian revolution in 2014. 86. Lavrov, “Reform Will Enhance the OSCE’s Relevance.” 87. Luc Michel, “From the So-called ‘Arab Spring’ to the ‘Russian Spring’: Pro-Western Coup in Russia!” Jamahiriyan Resistance Network, December 8, 2011. Accessed February 2, 2015, http://www.elac-committees.org/2011/12/08/luc-michel-from-the-so-called-arab-springto-the-russian-spring%E2%80%9D-pro-western-coup-in-russia/. 88. See “V Krymu budut rabotat’ okolo 100 nablyudateley OBSE,” Vesti, March 15, 2014. Accessed February 2, 2015, http://www.vesti.ru/videos/show/vid/584634/.

References

AA. VV., Da Jeune Europe alle Brigate Rosse. Antiamericanismo e logica dell’impegno rivoluzionario. Milan: Società Editrice Barbarossa, 1992. Ablonczy, Balázs. Teleki Pál. Budapest: Osiris Kiado, 2005. Akçalı, Emel, and Umut Korkut. “Geographical Metanarratives in East-Central Europe: NeoTuranism in Hungary.” Eurasian Geography and Economics 53 (2012): 596–614. Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso, 1991. Antonsich, M. “La Rivista ‘Geopolitica’ e la sua influenza sulla politica fascista.” Limes 4 (1994). Arefyev, Pavel. “Navigator po telekommunikatsionnym resursam v sotsiologii.” Sotsiologicheskii zhurnal, no. 3–4, (1999): 139–86. Aslanov, Leonid. Culture and Power. Germany: Lambert Academic Publishing ,2001. Atalay, Onur. Kızıl Elma Koalisyonu: Ulusalcılar, Milliyetçiler, Kemalistler. Istanbul: Paragidma, 2006. Baillet, Philippe. Julius Evola e l’affermazione assoluta: introduzione all’opera di Evola. Padova: Edizioni di Ar, 1978. Bale, Jeffrey M. “‘National Revolutionary’ Groupuscules and the Resurgence Of ‘Left-Wing’ Fascism: The Case of France’s Nouvelle Résistance.” Patterns of Prejudice 36 (2002): 24–49. Bar-On, Tamir. Rethinking the French New Right: Alternatives to Modernity. New York: Routledge, 2013. ———. Where Have All the Fascists Gone? Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2007. Battarra, Marco. “Una visita a Mosca.” Aurora, no. 5 (1993). Bebenina, Anna. “New Extreme Rightist Doctrines in Post-Cold War Western Europe and Russia: The Paradox of Similarity.” In Future in the Making: Opportunities . . . Choices . . . Consequences . . . , ed. Dave Carter, 88–99. Budapest: Civic Education Project, 2001. Bertozzi, D. A., and A. Fais, Il Risveglio del Drago. Politica e strategie della rinascita cinese. Parma: Edizioni All’insegna del Veltro, 2012. “Biblioteka ‘Elementov.’” Elementy, no. 7 (1996). Billig, Michael. Banal Nationalism. London: Sage, 1995. Birdwell, Jonathan. “CasaPound: The New Face of Fascism?” Open Society Foundations, October 29, 2012. Boltanski, Luc, and Eve Chiapello. The New Spirit of Capitalism. London: Verso, 2005. Borghi, Vando. “One-Way Europe? Institutional Guidelines, Emerging Regimes of Justification, and Paradoxical Turns in European Welfare Capitalism.” European Journal of Social Theory 14 (2011): 321–41.

245

246

References

Bouchet, Christian. Les Nouveaux nationalistes. Paris: Déterna, 2001. ———. “Yockey, le précurseur.” La Revue d’histoire du nationalisme-révolutionnaire, no. 1 (December 1998). Bougarel, Xavier. “Travailler sur l’islam dans la Bosnie en guerre.” Cultures et Conflits, no. 47 (2002): 49–80. Boutin, Christophe. “L’Extrême droite française au-delà du nationalisme 1958–1996.” Revue Française d’histoire des idées politiques, no. 3 (1996). Bowker, Mike. “The Wars in Yugoslavia: Russia and the International Community.” EuropeAsia Studies 50 (1998): 1245–61. Bowring, Bill. Law, Rights, and Ideology in Russia: Landmarks in the Destiny of a Great Power. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2013. Brambilla, M. Interrogatorio alle destre. Milan: Rizzoli, 1995. Brudny, Yitzhak. Reinventing Russia: Russian Nationalism and the Soviet State, 1953–1991. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000. Brunot, Patrick. Les Faux Amis de l’Amérique. Coulommiers: Dualpha, 2006. Bugajski, Janusz. Cold Peace: Russia’s New Imperialism. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2004. ———. Dismantling the West: Russia’s Atlantic Agenda. Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2009. Büttner, Frauke. “Right-Wing Extremism in Spain: Between Parliamentary Insignificance, FarRight Populism, and Racist Violence.” In Is Europe on the “Right” Path? Right-Wing Extremism and Right-Wing Populism in Europe, ed. Nora Langenbacher and Britta Schellenberg. Berlin: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, 2011. Byshok, Stanislav, and Aleksei Kochetkov. Evromaidan imeni Stepana Bandery. Ot demokratii k diktature. Moscow: Knizhnyi mir, 2014. Cafersoy, Nazim, ed. Türkiye-Rusya Stratejik Diyalog Toplantısı. Ankara: ASAM, 2003. Calvi, F., and F. Laurént. Piazza Fontana. La verità su una strage. Milan: Mondadori, 1997. Campbell, John L. “Institutional Analysis and the Role of Ideas in Political Economy.” Theory and Society 27 (1998): 377–409. Camus, Jean-Yves. “Une avant-garde populiste: ‘peuple’ et ‘nation’ dans le discours de Nouvelle résistance.” Mots, no. 55 (June 1998): 128–38. Casals, Xavier. El fascismo, entre el legado de Franco y la modernidad de Le Pen. Barcelona: Destino, 1998. ———. La Tentación neofascista en España. Barcelona: Plaza & Janés, 1998. ———. “La ultraderecha española: ¿Una modernización imposible?” In Los riesgos para la democracia: Fascismo y neofascismo, ed. Manuel Pérez Ledesma, 171–94. Madrid: Iglesias, 1997. ———. Neonazis en España: de las audiciones wagnerianas a los skinheads (1966–1995). Barcelona: Grijalbo, 1995. Çeçen, Anıl. “Atatürk ve Avrasya,” Ulusal, no. 3 (1996): 15–24. ———. Türkiye ve Avrasya. Ankara: Fark Yayınları, 2006. CEDADE. Thule, la Cultura de la Otra Europa. Barcelona: Ediciones Wetlaschauung, 1979. Centro per la Libertà della Scuola. La contesa di Parma. Processo al professor Mutti. Milan: Terziaria, 2001. Chacornac, Paul. The Simple Life of René Guénon. Ghent: Sophia Perennis, 2001. Chasapopoulos, Nikos. Golden Dawn: The History, the Faces, and the Truth. Athens: Livanis, 2013. Chelnokov, Aleksei. “Tri bogatyria v forme Waffen-SS,” Sovershenno sekretno no. 7, 278, July 2, 2012. Chrysi Avgi. Nea Evropaiki Taksis, I Diakiryksi tis Varkelonis. Athens: Chrysi Avgi, 1981. Cohn, Norman. Warrant for Genocide: The Myth of the Jewish World-Conspiracy and the “Protocol of the Elders of Zion.” Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1981. “Çok Kutuplu Globalleşme Sürecini Destekliyorum,” DA Diyalog Avrasya, no. 5 (2001): 10–13. Collectivo Karl-Otto Paetel. Fascismo Rojo. Valencia, 1998.

References

247

“Conference of European Extreme-Right Parties in Rome,” Kantor Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry, Tel Aviv. Conti, D. L’anima nera della Repubblica. Bari: Laterza, 2013. Conway, Martin. Collaboration in Belgium: Léon Degrelle and the Rexist Movement, 1940–1944. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993. Coogan, Keith. “Lost Imperium: the English Liberation Front (1949–54),” Patterns of Prejudice 36 (2002): 9–23. Cuadrado Costa, José. “Insuffisance et dépassement du concept marxiste-léniniste de nationalité,” Conscience européenne, no. 9 (October 1984). Curcio, Renato. A Visage découvert. Paris: Lieu Commun, 1993. Dantzker, Mark L., and Ronald D. Hunter. Research Methods for Criminology and Criminal Justice. Sudbury, UK: Jones and Bartlett, 2012. de Benoist, Alain. “L’idée d’Empire,” in Nation et Empire. Histoire et concept. Actes du XXIVe colloque national du GRECE, Paris, 24 mars 1991. Paris: GRECE, 1991. ———. “Preface.” In Alexander Dugin, L’appel de l’Eurasie. Paris: Avatar, 2013. ———. “Psychologie de la théorie du complot.” Politica Hermetica, no. 6 (1992): 13–35. ———. Vu de droite (Paris: Editions du Laberynthe, 1977). de Benoist, Alain, and Charles Champetier. Manifesto for a European Renaissance. London: Arktos Media, 2012. De Felice, R. Storia degli ebrei italiani sotto il fascism. Turin: Einaudi, 1961. Degrelle, Leon. Chilia Chronia Hitler. Athens: Logxe, 2002. Deliömeroğlu, Yakup. “Yeni Avrasyacılık ve Duginizm,” Türk Yurdu, no. 206 (October 2004). Demirkan, Tarık. Macar Turancıları. Istanbul: Türkiye Ekonomik ve Toplumsal Tarih Vakfi, 2000. Dinas, Elias, Vassiliki Georgiadou, Iannis Konstantinidis, and Lamprini Rori. “From Dusk to Dawn: Political Opportunities and Party Success of Right-Wing Extremism.” Party Politics, December 1 (2013). Dobrenkov, Vladimir. Tsennostno-orientirovannaya sotsiologiya: problemnoe pole postneoklassicheskoi metodologii. Moskva, 2011. Dobrenkov, V., and A. Kravchenko. Fundamental Sociology 1 (2003), Theory and Methodology. Moscow: INFRA-M. ———. Sotsiologiya: uchebnik. Moscow: Infra-M, 2007. Dobrowolsky, Alexandra, and Jane Jenson. “Shifting Representations of Citizenship: Canadian Politics of ‘Women’ and ‘Children,’” Social Politics 11 (2004): 154–80. Douguine, Alexandre [Alexander Dugin]. “Evola, Révolution conservatrice et Métaphysique (Intervention d’Alexandre Douguine au colloque de la Fondation Evola).” Nouvelles de Synergies Européennes, no. 6 (1994). ———. “L’empire soviétique et les nationalismes à l’époque de la perestroika,” in Nation et Empire. Histoire et concept. Actes du XXIVe colloque national du GRECE, Paris, 24 mars 1991. Paris: GRECE, 1991. ———. “Le complot idéologique du cosmisme russe.” Politica Hermetica, no. 6 (1992): 80–92. ———. “Panorama de la ‘Révolution conservatrice’ en Russie.” Vouloir, no. 129–136 (1996). Dubin, Boris. “Dve daty i eshche odna. Simvoly proshlogo kak indeks otnosheniya rossiian k peremenam.” Vestnik obshchestvennogo mneniya, no. 5 (2006), 18–26. Dughin, Alexander [Alexander Dugin]. Continente Russia. Parma, Italy: Edizioni All’insegna del Veltro, 1991. ———. Chetvertaya politicheskaya teoriya. Moscow: Amfora, 2009. ———. “Evraziiskii Zavet i Geopolitika Turtsii,” Krasnaya Zvezda, January 28, 2003. ———. Filosofiya traditionalizma. Moscow: Arktogeia, 2002. ———. Konservativnaya revolyutsiya. Tretii put’. Moscow: Aktogeya, 1994. ———. Konspirologiya. Moscow: Arktogeya, 1993. ———. La Grande guerre des continents. Paris: Avatar, 2006. ———. “L’idea eurasiatista.” Eurasia. Rivista di Studi Geopolitici 1 (2004). ———. “L’operaio.” Nomos. Bollettino di studi e analisi 5 (February 2013): 38.

248

References

———. Martin Khaidegger: filosofiya drugogo nachala. Moscow: Akademicheskii proekt, 2010. ———. Martin Khaidegger: vozmozhnost’ russkoi filosofii. Moscow: Akademicheskii proekt, 2011. ———. Moskova-Ankara Ekseni: Avrasya Hareketinin Temel Görüşleri, trans. Leonid Bakhrevski. Istanbul: Kaynak Yayınları, 2007. ———. Nursultan Nazarbayev’in Avrasya Misyonu, trans. Lazzat Urakova and Nehriban Gençkal. Ankara: Yeni Avrasya Yayınları, 2006. ———. “Okkul’tnaya voyna sen’yorov.” Giperboreya, no. 1 (1991): 65–81. ———. Osnovy geopolitiki. Geopoliticheskoe budushchee Rossii. Moscow: Arktogeya, 1997. ———. Rusia, El misterio de Eurasia. Madrid: Grupo Libro 88, 1992. ———. Rus Jeopolitiği: Avrasyacı Yaklaşım, trans. Vügar İmanov. Istanbul: Küre Yayınları, 2003. ———. “Sumerki geroyev,” in Konservativnaya Revolyutsiya (Moscow: Arktogeya, 1994). ———. Tseli i zadachi nashey revolyutsii. Moscow: Fravarti, 1995. ———. “Turetskii Gambit,” Trud, January 12, 2005. ———. “Turtsiya v Evraziiskom Virazhe,” Izvestiia, March 18, 2003. ———. “Vozvrashchayas’ k ‘Velikoy voyne kontinentov.’” Elementy, no. 3 (1993): 43. ———. Znaki velikogo Norda. Moscow: Veche, 2008. Dunlop, John B. Faces of Contemporary Russian Nationalism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983. Durham, Martin. “From Imperium To Internet: The National Alliance and the American Extreme Right.” In The “Groupuscular Right”: A Neglected Political Genus, ed. Roger Griffin. Special issue of Patterns of Prejudice 36 (2002): 50–61. Ecevit, Bülent. “Bölge Merkezli Dış Politika,” Ulusal, no. 4 (Fall 1997): 6–12. Ellinas, Antonis A. “The Rise of Golden Dawn: The New Face of the Far Right in Greece.” South European Society and Politics 18 (2013): 543–65. Enloe, Cynthia. Bananas, Beaches, and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics. London: Pandora Press, Harper/Collins, 1989. “‘Entretien avec Alexandre Douguine, éditeur traditionaliste à Moscou.’ Propos recueillis par Robert Steuckers et Arnaud Dubreuil.” Vouloir, nos. 71–72 (January/February 1991): 15–18. Erasov, Boris S. “Rossiya v Sisteme Geopoliticheskogo i Tsivilizatsionnogo Ustroeniya Evrazii/Avrasya Jeopolitik ve Medeniyet Sisteminde Rusya,” DA Diyalog Avrasya, no. 1 (2000): 44–47. European Center of Geopolitical Analysis. Moscow: 2009. Evola, J. Arte astratta. Rome: Maglione e Strini, 1920. ———. Cavalcare la tigre. Milan: Vanni Scheiwiller, 1961. ———. Gli uomini e le rovine. Rome: Edizioni dell’Ascia, 1953. ———. I tre aspetti del problema ebraico. Rome: Mediterranee, 1936. ———. Il cammino del cinabro. Milan: Vanni Scheiwiller, 1963. ———. Il libro della via e della virtù. Lanciano: Carabba, 1923. ———. Il mito del sangue. Milan: Hoepli, 1937. ———. Imperialismo pagano. Padua: Edizioni di Ar, 1996. ———. “La ‘mistica del sangue’ nel nuovo nazionalismo tedesco.” Bilychnis 34 (1931): 1–12. ———. La parole obscure du paisage interiéur. Paris: Collection Dada, 1921. ———. L’uomo come Potenza. Rome: Atanòr, 1926. ———. Rivolta contro il mondo moderno. Milan: Hoepli, 1934. ———. Sintesi di dottrina della razza. Milan: Hoepli, 1941. Fais, A. L’aquila della steppa. Volti e prospettive del Kazakistan. Parma: Edizioni All’insegna del Veltro, 2012. Fawn, Rick. “Battle Over the Box: International Election Observation Missions, Political Competition, and Retrenchment in the Post-Soviet Space.” International Affairs 82 (2006): 1133–53. Feirefiz, La via del cuore. Testi dell’esoterismo islamico. Carmagnola: Edizioni Arktos, 1979. Feischmidt, Margit, et al. Nemzet A Mindennapokban. Budapest: L’Harmattan, 2014.

References

249

Feliu, Moreno. “La Herencia desgraciada: racismo y heterofobia en Europa.” Estudios Sociológicos 12 (1994). Ferraresi, Franco. “Julius Evola: Tradition, Reaction, and the Radical Right.” European Journal of Sociology 28 (1987): 107–51. ———. Threats to Democracy: The Radical Right in Italy after the War. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996. Ferrari, A. La rinascita del nazionalismo russo. Parma: Edizioni All’insegna del Veltro, 1989. ———. La Terza Roma. Parma: Edizioni All’insegna del Veltro, 1986. Ferreyra, A.J. “Family Myth and Homeostasis.” In Paradoxes et Contre-Paradoxes, ed. M. Selvini-Palazzoli and L. Boscolo. Paris: Ed. E.S.F., 1975. Fielitz, Maik. Goldene Morgenröte für Europas extreme Rechte? Der Einfluss der griechischen Chrysi Avgi auf eine extrem rechte transnationale Bewegung. Munich: Feierwerk, 2013. “Finestra anonima, Perché siamo dei Mistici?” Geopolitica 3 (1939). François, Stéphane. Tradition, écologie, et identité. Études sur la Nouvelle Droite et ses dissidences, forthcoming. Franzinelli, Mimmo. Il Piano Solo. I servizi segreti, il centro-sinistra e il “golpe” del 1964. Milan: Mondadori, 2010. Fraquelli, M. Il filosofo proibito. Milan: Terziaria, 1994. Furlong, Paul. Introduction to the Social and Political Thought of Julius Evola. London: Routledge, 2011. Galli, G. “Prefazione.” In Il filosofo proibito, ed. M. Fraquelli. Milan: Terziaria, 1994. Ganser, D. NATO’s Secret Armies: Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe. New York: Routledge, 2005. Gentile, E. Fascismo storia e interpretazione. Bari: Editori Laterza, 2007. Georgiadou, Vassiliki. “I eklogiki anodos tis Chrysis Avgis. Psifos-revans ton episfalon kai nees politikes evkairies.” In O diplos eklogikos seismos, ed. Giannis Voulgaris and Ilias Nikolakopoulos, 185–219. Athens: Themelio, 2014. ———. “Right-Wing Populism and Extremism: The Rapid Rise of ‘Golden Dawn’ in CrisisRidden Greece,” in Right-Wing Extremism in Europe: Country Analyses, Counter-Strategies and Labor-Market Oriented Exit Strategies. Berlin: Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, 2013. Geydar, Dzhemal. “Evropa do Vladivostoka, ili Aziya do Dublina?” Den’, September 20–26, 1992. Gnerre, O. M. “Alexander Dugin in Turchia.” Nomos. Bollettino di studi e analisi 4 (July 2012): 10. ———. “Intervista a Natella Speranskaja.” Nomos. Bollettino di studi e analisi 1 (January 2012): 34–37. Göka, Erol, and Murat Yılmaz, eds. Uygarlığın Yeni Yolu: Avrasya. Istanbul: Kızılelma Yayıncılık, 1998. Gömbös, Miklós. Turáni Kérdés. Bonyhád: At Raubitschek Izór, 1922. Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas. Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism, and the Politics of Identity. New York: New York University Press, 2002. ———. Hitler’s Priestess: Savitri Devi, the Hindu-Aryan Myth, and Neo-Nazism. New York: New York University Press, 1998. ———. The Occult Roots of Nazism: Secret Aryan Cults and Their Influence on Nazi Ideology: The Ariosophists of Austria and Germany, 1890–1935. New York: New York University Press, 1992. GRECE. Manifeste pour une renaissance européenne. Paris: GRECE, 2000. ———. Nation et Empire. Histoire et Concept. Proceedings of the Twenty-fourth National Colloquium of GRECE, Paris, March 24, 1991. Paris: GRECE, 1991. Grego. Figlie della stessa lupa. Rome: Fuoco Edizioni, 2009. Griffin, Roger. “Between Metapolitics and Apoliteia: The Nouvelle Droite’s Strategy for Conserving the Fascist Vision in the ‘Interregnum,’” Modern and Contemporary France. 8 (2000): 35–53. ———. “Interregnum or Endgame? The Radical Right in the ‘Post-Fascist’ Era.” Journal of Political Ideologies 5 (2000): 163–78.

250

References

———. Modernism and Fascism: The Sense of a Beginning under Mussolini and Hitler. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. ———. The Nature of Fascism. London: Routledge, 1991. Grigoriadis, Ioannis N., and Irmak Özer. “Mutations of Turkish Nationalism: From Neo-nationalism to the Ergenekon Affair,” Middle East Policy, no. 4 (Winter 2010). Gyurgyák, János. Magyar Fajvedők. Budapest: Osiris, 2012. Hagemeister, Michael. “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion: Between History and Fiction.” New German Critique 35 (2008): 83–95. Hall, Peter A. “Policy Paradigms, Social Learning, and the State: The Case of Economic Policymaking in Britain.” Comparative Politics 25 (1993): 275–96. Hanebrink, Paul A. In Defense of Christian Hungary: Religion, Nationalism, and Antisemitism, 1890–1944. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2009. Hardeman, Hilde. Coming to Terms with the Soviet Regime. The “Changing Signposts” Movement among Russian Emigrés in the Early 1920s. Dekalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1994. Hedenskog, Jakob, and Robert L. Larsson. Russian Leverage on the CIS and the Baltic States. Stockholm: Totalförsvarets Forskningsinstitut, 2007. Höllwerth, Alexander. Das sakrale eurasische Imperium des Alexander Dugin. Eine Diskursanalyse zum postsowjetischen russischen Rechtsextremismus. Stuttgart: ibidem-Verlag, 2007. Holthouse, David. “Preston Wiginton Emerges in Russia Promoting Race Hate,” Southern Poverty Law Center Intelligence Report (Summer 2008). Hopf, Ted. Social Construction of International Politics: Identities and Foreign Policies, Moscow 1955 and 1999. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2002. Hyndman, Jennifer. “Beyond Either/Or: A Feminist Analysis of September 11th.” ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies 2 (2003): 1–13. İbrahimov, Aydın. “Rusya’nın Jeopolitiği: Gerçekler ve Gelişmeler,” Jeopolitik, no. 1 (Winter 2002): 133–39. Ignazi, P. Il polo escluso. Profilo del Movimento Sociale Italiano. Bologna: Il Mulino, 1989. İlhan, Attilâ. Dönek Bereketi. Istanbul: Türkiye İş Bankası Kültür Yayınları, 2002. ———. Sultan Galiyef: Avrasya’da Dolaşan Hayalet, 2nd ed. Istanbul: Türkiye İş Bankası Kültür Yayınları, 2005. ———. Yıldız, Hilâl ve Kalpak: Gâzi’nin ‘Ulusal’ Solculuğu, 2nd ed. Istanbul: Türkiye İş Bankası Kültür Yayınları, 2004. İlhan, Suat. Türklerin Jeopolitiği ve Avrasyacılık, 2nd ed. Ankara: Bilgi Yayınevi, 2005. Ilyasov, Farhad. Political Marketing: Art and Science of Winning the Elections. Moscow: IMA Press, 2000. İmanov, Vügar. Avrasyacılık: Rusya’nın Kimlik Arayışı. Istanbul: Küre Yayınları, 2008. Ingram, Alan. “Alexander Dugin: Geopolitics and Neo-Fascism in Post-Soviet Russia.” Political Geography 20 (2001): 1029–51. Ivanov, A. V., and M. Y. Shishin. “Istoricheskoe obosnovanie ‘turetskogo evraziistva’ predstavlyaetsya somnitel’nym,” DA Diyalog Avrasya, no. 6 (2002): 80–84. Jabardo, Rosario, and Fernando Reinares. “Démobilisation de l’extrême droite en Espagne,” L’Extrême droite en Europe, Pouvoirs, no. 87 (November 1998). Jacoby, Wade, and Umut Korkut. “Hungary’s ‘Eastern Opening’ in Rhetoric and in Reality: Can Fidesz Use China to Lessen its Vulnerabilities?” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, DC, August 28–31, 2014. Jelavich, Barbara. Russia’s Balkan Entanglements, 1806–1914. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Jesi, F. Cultura di destra. Milan: Aldo Garzanti Editore, 1979. Kálnoky, Boris. “Hungary’s ‘Opening to the East’ and Turkey,” Hungarian Review 4 (2013): 30 Karácsony, Gergely, and Dániel Róna. “A Jobbik Titka. A szélsőjobb magyarországi megerősödésének lehetséges okáiról.” Politikatudományi Szemle 19 (2010), 31–66. Karpat, Kemal. “Avrasya’da Devlet Kavramını Çağına Uydurmak,” DA Diyalog Avrasya, no. 2 (2000): 28–33.

References

251

Kaufman, Stuart J., and Stephen R. Bowers. “Transnational Dimensions of the Transnistrian Conflict.” Nationalities Papers 26 (1998): 129–46. Kellogg, Michael. The Russian Roots of Nazism: White Emigres and the Making of National Socialism 1917–1945. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Konyubinskii, D.A. Russkii natsionalizm v nachale XX veka. Moscow: Rossnep, 2001. Korey, William. Russian Antisemitism, Pamyat, and the Demonology of Zionism. Chur, Switzerland: Harwood, 1995. Korkut, Umut. “Evolving the Extreme into Ordinary: Cultural Legacies and the Identity Construction of the Hungarian Extreme Right.” In The Identity Dilemma: Social Movements and Contested Identity, ed. Aidan McGarry and James Jasper. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2015. Korovin, Valerii. Glavnaya voennaya tayna SShA. Setevye voiny. Moscow: Eksmo, 2009. ———. Nakanune imperii. Prikladnaya geopolitika i setevye voiny. Moscow: Evraziiskoe dvizhenie, 2008. Krastev, Ivan. “Democracy’s ‘Doubles.’” Journal of Democracy 17 (2006): 52–62. ———. “Is China More Democratic than Russia?” Open Democracy, March 12, 2013. Kravchenko, Albert. Istoriya sotsiologii: uchebnik. Moscow: Prospekt, 2006. ———. Politologiya: Uchebnoe posobie dlya studentov. Moscow, 2001. La guerra rivoluzionaria. Atti del Primo Convegno organizzato dall’Istituto Pollio. Rome: Giovanni Volpe Editore, 1965. Laqueur, Walter. Black Hundreds: The Rise of the Extreme Right in Russia. New York: Harper Collins, 1993. ———. Russia and Germany: A Century of Conflict. London: Widelfeld and Nicolson, 1965. Laruelle, Marlene. Alexander Dugin: A Russian Version of the European Radical Right? Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 2006. ———. “A Nationalist Kulturkampf in Russia? The Izborsky Club as the Anti-Valdai,” forthcoming. ———. “Alternative Identity, Alternative Religion? Neo-Paganism and the Aryan Myth in Contemporary Russia.” Nations and Nationalism 14 (2008): 283–301. ———. “Conspiracy and Alternate History in Russia: A Nationalist Equation for Success.” Russian Review 71 (October 2012): 557–74. ———. “Russia as an ‘Anti-Liberal European Civilization’: A contribution to the debate on state and ideology in Russia,” in Pál Kolstø and Helge Blakkisrud, eds., Before and after Crimea: Russian nationalism under Putin. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, forthcoming. ———. Russian Eurasianism: An Ideology of Empire. Baltimore, MD, and Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Press/Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008. ———. Russkie natsionalisty i krayne pravye i ikh zapadnye svyazi: ideologicheskie zaimstvovaniya i lichnoe vzaimodeystvie. Moscow: Sova Center, 2014). ———. “Russo-Turkish Rapprochement through the Idea of Eurasia: Alexander Dugin’s Networks in Turkey,” Jamestown Foundation Occasional Paper, April 2008. ———. “The Yuzhinsky Circle: Far Right Metaphysics in the Soviet Underground and its Legacy Today.” Russian Review, forthcoming. Latour, Bruno. Science in Action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987. Lattanzio, A. Songun. Antimperialismo e identità nazionale nella Corea socialista. Parma: Edizioni All’insegna del Veltro, 2012. Lebourg, Nicolas, Jonathan Preda, and Joseph Beauregard. Aux Racines du FN. L’Histoire du mouvement Ordre Nouveau. Paris: Fondation Jean Jaurès, Paris, 2014. Lee, Martin A. The Beast Reawakens. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1997. Lemke, Thomas. “‘The Birth of Biopolitics’: Michel Foucault’s Lecture at the Collège de France on Neo-Liberal Governmentality.” Economy and Society 30 (2001): 190–207. Leont’ev, K. Bizantinismo e mondo slavo. Parma: Edizioni All’insegna del Veltro, 1987. Les Peuples blancs survivront-ils? déclarations du Nouvel Ordre Européen de 1967 à 1985 présentés par G-A. Amaudruz. Montreal: Editions celtiques, 1987. Likhachev, Vyacheslav. Natsizm v Rossii. Moscow: Panorama, 2002.

252

References

Likhachev, Vyacheslav, and Vladimir Pribylovsky. Russkoe Natsional’noe Edinstvo, vol. 1, Istoriya i ideologiya, 1990–2000. Stuttgart: ibidem-Verlag, 2005. Limonov, Eduard. Moya politicheskaya biografiya. Saint-Petersburg: Amfora, 2002. Lipman, Maria. “Putin’s ‘Besieged Fortress’ and Its Ideological Arms,” in Maria Lipman and Nikolay Petrov, eds., Russia Beyond 2014: Development Through Crises. New York, London: Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming. Michel, Luc. La “Pridnestrovskaia Moldavskaia Respublika” (PMR): Construction d’un nouvel état européen et expérience de démocratie directe. Brussels: EODE, 2007. Maiocchi, R. Scienza italiana e razzismo fascista. Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1999. Mareš, Miroslav. “Transnational Networks of Extreme Right Parties in East Central Europe: Stimuli and Limits of Cross-Border Cooperation.” Paper prepared for the 20th IPSA World Congress, Fukuoka, Japan, July 9–13, 2006. Markushin, Vadim. “Evraziiskaya Os,” Krasnaya Zvezda, October 20, 2004. Maroukis, Thanos. “Irregular Migration in Greece: Size and Features, Causes, and Discourses.” In Irregular Migration in Europe: Myths and Realities, ed. Anna Triandafillidou. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2010. Mathyl, Markus. “The National-Bolshevik Party and Arctogaia: Two Neo-Fascist Groupuscules in the Post-Soviet Political Space.” Patterns of Prejudice 36 (2002): 62–76. Menzel, Birgit, Michael Hagemeister, and Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal, eds. The New Age of Russia: Occult and Esoteric Dimensions. Munich: Kubon and Sagner, 2012. Metafizika vechnogo vozvrashcheniya. Moskva: Nox, 1996. Meyer, M.S. “Iz Istorii Evraziistva/Avrasyacılık Tarihinden,” Diyalog Avrasya, no. 2 (2000): 98–105. Michael, George. The Enemy of My Enemy: The Alarming Convergence of Militant Islam and the Extreme Right (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2006). Michaloliakos, N.G. Echthroi tou kathestotos. Chrysi Avgi 1993–1998. Athens: Askalon, 2000. Milá, Ernesto. “La Nation européenne, el ultimo proyecto de Jean Thiriart.” Revista de Historia del Fascismo, no. 2 (December 2010–January 2011): 152–74. Mitrokhin, Nikolai. “Russkaya partiya”: dvizhenie russkikh natsionalistov v SSSR 1953–1985 gg. Moscow: NLO, 2003. Mitrović, Ljubisa. “The Encyclopedic Contribution of Vladimir Ivanovic Dobrenkov to Contemporary Russian Sociology.” Facta Universitatis 12 (2013): 103–10. Modvedev, V., V. Khomiakov, and V. Bolokur. Natsional’naya ideya ili chego ozhidaet Bog ot Rossii. Moscow: Sovremennie tetradi, 2005. Müller, Rolf-Dieter. The Unknown Eastern Front: The Wehrmacht and Hitler’s Foreign Soldiers. London: I.B. Tauris, 2012. Munoz, Antonio J. The East Came West: Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist Volunteers in the German Armed Forces, 1941–1945. New York: Axis Europa Books, 2002. Murelli, M. “Occidente: fronte infame.” Orion, October 2001. ———. “Sette risposte a sette domande pertinenti.” Aurora 4 (March 1993). Mutti, Claudio. Julius Evola sul fronte dell’Est. Parma: Edizioni All’insegna del Veltro, 1998. ———, ed., Gheddafi Templare di Allah. Padua: Edizioni di Ar, 1975. ———. La Rivoluzione Culturale Libica. Parma: All’insegna del Veltro, 1973. ———. “The Struggle of Jean Thiriart.” Eurasia: Rivista di studi geopolitici (February 23, 2012). ———. “Un precursore del pensiero eurasiatista: Konstantin Leont’ev.” Eurasia. Rivista di studi geopolitici, May 11, 2011. “‘My ne myslim Evropy bez Indii . . .’ Interv’yu s Kristianom Bouchet (1).” Elementy, no. 8 (1996/1997): 27–36. Nairn, Tom. The Break-Up of Britain: Crisis and Neo-Nationalism. London: New Left Books, 1977. Nefedov, Sergei. “Timar: Osmanskaya Sistema v Drevnei Rusi/Tımar: Kadim Rus Diyarında Bir Osmanlı Sistemi,” DA Diyalog Avrasya, no. 8 (2003): 34–40. Nikolski, Véra. National-bolchevisme et néo-eurasisme dans la Russie contemporaine: La carrière militante d’une idéologie. Paris: CNRS-Éditions, 2013. Nora, Pierre. Les lieux de mémoire, vol. 1, La République. Paris: Gallimard, 1984.

References

253

Norwegian Social Science Data Services (NSD), European Election Database. Oba, Ali Engin. Türk Milliyetçiliğinin Doğuşu. Ankara: Imge Kitabevi, 1995. Ochsenreiter, Manuel. “Der Vordenker.” Zuerst, Deutsches Nachrichtenmagazin 3 (2013): 73–77. Öğüt, Kaan. “Kemalist Bakış Açısıyla Avrasya Güçbirliğinin Değerlendirilmesi,” Ulusal, no. 4 (Fall 1997): 73–94. Önen, Nizam. Turancı Hareketler: Macaristan ve Türkiye (1910–1944). Ankara: Ankara University Press, 2013. Orenstein, Mitchell A. “Putin’s Western Allies: Why Europe’s Far Right Is on the Kremlin’s Side.” Foreign Affairs, March 25, 2014. Orientations pour des années décisives. Paris: Le Labyrinthe, 1982. Orsini, P. D’Agostino, “Le direttrici geopolitiche dell’espansione italiana alla Mostra delle Terre d’Oltremare.” Rassegna Sociale dell’Africa Italiana 5–6 (1940): 382. OSCE/ODIHR. Republic of Belarus. Parliamentary Elections. 17 October 2004. OSCE/ ODIHR Election Observation Mission. Final Report. Warsaw: OSCE/ODIHR, 2004. ———. Russian Federation, State Duma Elections, 4 December 2011: Final Report. Warsaw: OSCE/ODIHR, 2012). Özdağ, Ümit. Türk Tarihinin ve Geleceğinin Jeopolitik Çerçevesi. Ankara: ASAM, 2003. Pacini, G. Le altre Gladio. La lotta segreta anticomunista in Italia, 1943–1991. Turin: Einaudi, 2014. Paikert, Alajos. Turáni Mult, Turáni Jövő. Különlenyomat a Turán, 1931. Pankowski, Rafał. The Populist Radical Right in Poland: The Patriots. London: Routledge, 2010. Pankowski, Rafał, and Marcin Kornak. “Poland,” in Racist Extremism in Central and Eastern Europe, ed. Cas Mudde, 145–70. London: Routledge, 2005. Parvulesco, Jean. Vladimir Poutine et l’Eurasie. Paris: Amis de la culture europeenne, 2005. Perednik, Gustavo D. “Naïve Spanish Judeophobia.” Jewish Political Studies Review 15 (2003): 87–110. Perinçek, Mehmet. Avrasyacılık: Türkiye’deki Teori ve Pratiği. Ankara: Bilgi Yayınevi, 2006. Piscitelli, A. “L’individuo assoluto e I suoi critici.” In Teoria dell’individuo assoluto, ed. J. Evola, 207–22. Rome: Edizioni Mediterranee, 1998. Piskorski, Mateusz. “Bratskaya Pol’sha.” Ya—russkiy, no. 51, September 2000. ———. Samoobrona RP w polskim systemie partyjnym. Rozprawa doktorska. Poznań: Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza, 2010. Plevris, Konstantinos A. Gegonota. Ta agnosta paraskinia. Athens: Ilektron, 2009. Polyannikov, Timur. “Po tropam Khimery, ili razmyshlenniya o evraziistve i ‘novom mirovom poryadke.’” Kontinent (October 30–November 12, 2002). Popescu, Nicu. “Russia’s Soft Power Ambitions.” CEPS Policy Brief, no. 115 (2006). Promezhutochnyi otchet o rezul’tatakh distantsionnogo monitoringa vyborov Prezidenta SShA 6 noyabrya 2012 goda. Moscow: Grazhdanskiy kontrol’, 2012. Pribylovski, Vladimir. “Pamyat,’” in R. Sh. Ganelin, ed., Natsional’naya pravaia prezhde i teper’. (Saint-Petersburg: Institut sotsiologii RAN, vol. 2, 1992), 151–70. Psarras, Dimitris. I Chrysi Avgi Brosta sti Dikaios y ni. Brussels and Athens: Rosa Luxemburg Institute, 2014. ———. I Mavri Vivlos tis Chrysis Avgis. Brussels and Athens: Rosa Luxemburg Institute, 2012. ———. “The Rise of the Neo-Nazi Party ‘Golden Dawn’ in Greece: Neo-Nazi Mobilization in the Wake of the Crisis.” Brussels: Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, 2013. Rao, N. Il Piombo e la Celtica. Milan: Sperling and Kupfer, 2009. Rawson, Donald C. Russian Rightists and the Revolution of 1905. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995. “Repression Ahead: Vladimir Putin’s Crackdown on Opponents, Protesters, and Activist Groups May be a Sign of Fragility as Much as of Strength,” Economist, June 1, 2013. Revelli, M. La destra nazionale. Milan: Il Saggiatore, 1996. Reyhan, Hakan. “Avrasya Gündemi,” Ulusal, no. 4 (Fall 1997): 3–5.

254

References

Rodríguez Jiménez, José L. “Antisemitism and the Extreme Right in Spain (1962–1997),” Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism, Analysis of Current Trends in Antisemitism, no. 15 (1999). ———. “The Spanish Extreme Right: From Neo-Francoism to Xenophobic Discourse.” In Mapping the Extreme Right in Contemporary Europe: From Local to Transnational, ed. Andrea Mammone, Emmanuel Godin, and Brian Jenkins, 109–23. London: Routledge, 2012. Rogatchevski, Andrei. The National-Bolshevik Party. Stuttgart: ibidem-Verlag, forthcoming. Rogger, Hans, and Eugen Weber, eds. The European Right: A Historical Profile. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1965. Rose, Jacqueline. Proust among the Nations: From Dreyfus to the Middle East. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2011. Rossman, Vadim. “Anti-Semitism and Geopolitics in Post-Communist Russia: The Changing Attitudes of Alexander Dugin.” In Das “bewegliche’ Vorurteil”—Eigen- und Fremdbilder der Jüdischen, ed. by Christina von Braun and Eva-Maria Ziege. Berlin: Philo-Verlag, 2004. ———. Russian Intellectual Antisemitism in the Post-Communist Era. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2002. Rota, G. Intellettuali, Dittatura, Razzismo di Stato. Milan: Franco Angeli Editore, 2008. Ruscone, Pierre. Pierre Rusco: Stoï. Paris: Dualpha, 2006. “Rusia. Declaración de la oposición revolucionaria.” Tribuna de Europa, no. 7 (1994): 6–7. Safarevic, Igor’ [Igor Shafarevich]. La setta mondialista contro la Russia. Parma, Italy: Edizioni All’insegna del Veltro, 1991. Saint Loup [Marc Augier]. Les partisans. Paris: Denoel, 1943. Sand, Shlomo. The Invention of the Jewish People. London and New York: Verso, 2009. Santini, S. L’imperialismo verso la prossima guerra? Scenari, cronache, retroscena. Parma: Edizioni All’insegna del Veltro, 2012. Savino, Giovanni. “Il nazionalismo russo: ideologie, organizzazioni, sfera pubblica.” PhD diss., Sum Istituto Italiano di Scienze Umane, Naples, 2012. ———. “La Russia ostaggio del nazionalismo.” MicroMega, March 2, 2014, 176–88. Savitski, Petr N. “Evraziiskaya Kontseptsiya Russkoi Istorii/Rus Tarihinin Avrasya Konsepti,” DA Diyalog Avrasya, no. 1 (2000): 35–37. Scalea, D. “La grande scommessa del nostro secolo.” La Nazione Eurasia 1 (2004). Schedler, Andreas. “The Logic of Electoral Authoritarianism.” In Electoral Authoritarianism: The Dynamics of Unfree Competition, ed. Andreas Schedler, 1–23. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2006. Schlembach, Raphel. “The Transnationality of European Nationalist Movements.” Revue Belge de Philologie et d’Histoire 89 (2011): 1331–49. Secor, Anna. “Towards a Feminist Counter-Geopolitics: Gender, Space, and Islamist Politics in Istanbul.” Space and Polity 5 (2001): 191–211. Sedgwick, Mark. Against the Modern World: Traditionalism and the Secret Intellectual History of the Twentieth Century. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Sémelin, Jacques. Purifier et détruire. Usages politiques des massacres et génocides. Paris: Le Seuil, 2005, 33. Serrano, Miguel. Adolf Hitler, el Último Avatãra. Santiago: Ediciones la Nueva Edad, 1984. ———. “Weltanschauung,” Giperboreya, no. 1 (1991): 8–40. Shalin, Dmitry. “National Sociology and Paradigm Pluralism: Pragmatist Reflections on Russian and American Sociology.” Unpublished paper, 2008. ———. “Sociology for the Glasnost Era: Institutional and Substantive Change in Recent Soviet Sociology.” Social Forces, 68 (1990): 1–21. Sheehan, Thomas. “Myth and Violence: The Fascism of Julius Evola and Alain de Benoist.” Social Research 48 (1981): 45–73. Shekhovtsov, Anton. “Alexander Dugin’s Neo-Eurasianism: The New Right à la Russe.” Religion Compass 3 (2009): 697–716. ———. “The Palingenetic Thrust of Russian Neo-Eurasianism: Ideas of Rebirth in Alexander Dugin’s Worldview.” Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions 9 (2008): 491–506.

References

255

Shekhovtsov, Anton, and Andreas Umland. “Is Alexander Dugin a Traditionalist? ‘Neo-Eurasianism’ and Perennial Philosophy.” Russian Review 68 (2009): 662–678. ———. “Vladimir Zhirinovsky and the LDPR.” Russian Analytical Digest, no. 102 (2011): 14–16. Shekhovtsov, Anton, and Paul Jackson, eds. White Power Music: Scenes of Extreme-Right Cultural Resistance. Northampton, UK: RNM, 2012. Shenfield, Stephen D. Russian Fascism: Traditions, Tendencies, Movements. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2001. Sheremet, V.I. “Vysokaya Porta v Evraziiskom Dialoge/Avrasya Diyaloğunda Osmanlı Devleti,” DA Diyalog Avrasya, no. 5 (2001): 86–95. Shlapentokh, Dmitry, ed., Russia between East and West: Scholarly Debates on Eurasianism. Boston, MA: Brill, 2007. Shlapentokh, Vladimir. The Politics of Sociology in the Soviet Union. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1987. Shnirel’man, Viktor. Intellektual’nye labirinty: ocherki ideologii v sovremennoi Rossii. Moscow: Academia, 2004. ———. “Nazad k yazychestvu? Triumfal’noe shestvie neoyazychestva po prostoram Evrazii,” in Neoyazychestvo v prostorakh Evrazii, ed. Victor Shnirel’man. Moscow: Bibleisko-Bogoslovskii institute, 2001. Simonsen, Sven Gunnar. “Alexander Barkashov and Russian National Unity: Blackshirt Friends of the Nation.” Nationalities Papers 24 (1996): 625–39. Sokolov, Mikhail. “Russian National Unity: An Analysis of the Political Style of a RadicalNationalist Organization.” Russian Politics and Law 46 (2008): 66–79. Soral, Alain. Comprendre l’Empire. Paris: Editions Blanche, 2011. Soros, George. “Wake Up, Europe.” New York Review of Books, November 20, 2014, 6. Southgate, Troy. Tradition and Revolution. London: Arktos, 2010. Spektorowski, Alberto. “The New Right: Ethno-regionalism, Ethno-pluralism, and the Emergence of a Neo-fascist ‘Third Way.’” Journal of Political Ideologies 8 (2003): 111–30. Speranskaya, Natella. ENDKAMPF. Misterionsophia Nihiladeptus. Moscow, 2010. Steuckers, Robert. “L’œuvre de Mackinder, géographe britannique.” Vouloir, no. 31 (1986): 6–7. ———. “Panorama théorique de la géopolitique.” Orientations, no. 12 (1990–1991): 3–13. Stojkovic, Dragan. “The Brothers Karic.” Transitions Online, October 26, 2001. Stoykers, Rober [Robert Steuckers]. “Teoreticheskaya panorama geopolitiki.” Elementy: Geopoliticheskie tetradi, no. 1 (1992): 2–8. Szendrei, László. A Turanizmus. Gödöllő: Attraktor, 2010. Taguieff, Pierre-André. “Discussion or Inquisition? The Case of Alain de Benoist.” Telos, no. 98–99 (1993/1994): 34–54. ———. “From Race to Culture: The New Right’s View of European Identity.” Telos, no. 98–99 (1993/1994): 99–125. ———. La judéophobie des Modernes: Des Lumières au Jihad mondial. Paris: Jacob, 2008. ———. La Nouvelle judéophobie. Paris: Mille et une Nuits, 2002. ———. The New Cultural Racism in France. New York: Telos Press, 1990. ———. Sur la Nouvelle droite. Jalons d’une analyse critique (Paris: Galilée, 1994), 148–296. Tamás Sárközy, “A ‘vezérdemokracia’ kormányazásanak jellemzői,” Mozgó Világ 9 (2013). Tarantino, G. Da Giovane Europa ai Campi Hobbit. 1966–1986: Vent’anni di esperienze movimentiste al di là della destra e della sinistra. Naples: Controcorrente, 2011. Tassinari, U.M. Fascisteria: Storie, mitografia e personaggi della destra radicale in Italia. Milan: Sperling and Kupfer, 2008. Terracciano, C. “Le zanzare sazie e le alter.” Aurora 6 (May 1993). ———. “Perché Cuba?” Origini 6 (1992): 9. ———. Rivolta contro il mondialismo moderno. Molfetta: Edizioni Noctua, 2002. Tezkan, Yılmaz, ed. Kadim Komşumuz Yeni Rusya. Istanbul: Ülke Kitapları, 2001. ———. Menfaatler Çatışması Ortasında Türkiye. Istanbul: Ülke Kitapları, 2000. Tezkan, Yılmaz, and M. Murat Taşar. Dünden Bugüne Jeopolitik. Istanbul: Ülke Kitapları, 2002.

256

References

“Three Interviews with Alain de Benoist.” Telos, no. 98–99 (1993): 173–207. Thiriart, Jean. ¡Arriba Europa! Una Europa Unida: a imperio 400 millones de hombres. Barcelona: Mateu, 1965. ———. “L’Europe jusqu’à Vladivostok.” Nationalisme et République, no. 9 (1992). ———. L’empire Euro-Sovietique de Vladivostok à Dublin l’après-Yalta. La mutation du communisme. Essai sur le totalitarisme éclairé. Charleroi: Editions Machiavel, 1984. ———. Un Empire de 400 millions d’hommes: l’Europe. Paris: Avatar, 2004. Tölgyessey, Péter. “A Fidesz és a Magyar Politika lehetséges új iránya” in Van Irány Trendek a Magyar Politkában?, ed. Zsolt Boda and András Körösényi. Budapest: ÚMK, 2012. Torbakov, Igor. “Europe Twin Sisters,” Open Democracy, June 14, 2013. Tosca, P. Il cammino della tradizione: il tradizionalismo italiano 1920–1990. Rimini: Il cerchio, 1995. “Tsentr Spetsial’nykh Metastrategicheskikh Issledovaniy.” Elementy, no. 1 (1992): 48. “Türkiye Açısından Avrasya,” DA Diyalog Avrasya, no. 1 (2000): 38–43. Umland, Andreas. “Alexander Dugin’s Transformation from a Lunatic Fringe Figure into a Mainstream Political Publicist, 1980–1998: A Case Study in the Rise of Late and PostSoviet Russian Fascism.” Journal of Eurasian Studies 1 (2010): 144–52. ———. “Evraziiskie proekti Putina i Dugina—skhodstva i razlichiya: ob ideinykh istokakh i politicheskoi roli pravoekstremistskogo intellektualizma v neoavtoritarnoi Rossii.” Geopolitkia Litva, 2012. ———. “The Fascism of Vladimir Zhirinovskii: Political Religion and the Rise of the LiberalDemocratic Party of Russia in the Early 1990s.” Religion Compass 4 (2010): 757–70. ———. “New Extreme Right-Wing Intellectual Circles in Russia: The Anti-Orange Committee, Izborsk Club, and Florian Geyer Club.” Russian Analytical Digest, no. 135 (August 5, 2013). ———. “Pathological Tendencies in Russian ‘Neo-Eurasianism’: The Significance of the Rise of Alexander Dugin for the Interpretation of Public Life in Contemporary Russia.” Russian Politics and Law 47 (2009): 76–89. ———. “Post-Soviet ‘Uncivil Society’ and the Rise of Alexander Dugin: A Case Study of the Extraparliamentary Radical Right in Contemporary Russia.” PhD diss., University of Cambridge, 2007. ———. “Toward an Uncivil Society? Contextualizing the Decline of Post-Soviet Russian Parties of the Extreme Right Wing.” Demokratizatsiya 103 (2002): 362–91. Umland, Andreas, and Anton Shekhovtsov. “Is Dugin a Traditionalist? ‘Neo-Eurasianism’ and Perennial Philosophy.” Russian Review 68 (2009): 662–78. Vámbéry, Ármin. A Magyarság Keletkezése es Gyarapodása. Budapest: Franklin-Tarsulat, 1895. Vásárhelyi, Mária. Csalóka Emlékezet A 20 század történelme a Magyar közgondolkodásban. Budapest: Kalligram, 2007. Verkhovsky, Alexander, and Galina Kozhevnikova, eds. Radical Russian Nationalism: Structures, Ideas, Persons. Moscow: Informatsionno-analiticheskii tsentr “SOVA,” 2009. Vernole, S. “Movimento Eurasia? Apriamo il dibattito.” La Nazione Eurasia 1 (2004). Virga, A. “Il ‘Barone Nero’: vita ed opere di Julius Evola.” L’arrivista. Quaderni democratici 2 (2011): 99–105. VV. AA., Omaggio a Drieu La Rochelle. Parma: Edizioni All’insegna del Veltro, 1997. Waterfield, Robin E. René Guénon and the Future of the West: The Life and Writings of a 20thCentury Metaphysician. Wellingborough, UK: Crucible, 1987. Whine, Michael. Mapping the Extreme Right in Contemporary Europe. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2012. ———. “Trans-European Trends in Right-Wing Extremism.” In Mapping the Extreme Right in Contemporary Europe: From Local to Transnational, ed. Andrea Mammone, Emmanuel Godin, and Brian Jenkins, 317–33. New York: Routledge, 2012. Williams, Robert. Culture in Exile: Russian Emigres in Germany (1881–1941). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1972. Wilson, Andrew. Ukraine’s Orange Revolution. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005.

References

257

———. Virtual Politics: Faking Democracy in the Post-Soviet World. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005. Yalınkılıçlı, Eşref. “Tarihin Coğrafya Ekseni: Yeni Avrasyacılık mı? Yeni Avrusyacılık mı?” ADAM Social Science Research Center, July 20, 2007. Yanov, Alexander. Russian New Right. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978. Yeniçeri, Özcan. “Çatışan ve Örtüşen Stratejiler Odağında Avrasyacılık ve Türkiye,” AsyaAvrupa, no. 1 (December 2004): 3–21. ———. “Yeni Bir Türk Stratejisi ve Yeni Bir Türk Hamlesi,” Asya-Avrupa, no. 4 (March 2006): 12–37. Zeybek, Namık Kemal. “Ortalık Asya Birliği,” Asya-Avrupa, no. 3 (July 2005): 4–9. Zhirinovsky, Vladimir, and Patrick Brunot. Jirinovski m’a dit ... Paris: [self-published], 1995. Zimniak-Hałajko, Marta. “Kultura słowiańska jako alternatywna.” Przegląd Humanistyczny, no. 4 (2009): 113–22. Zivers, Hans [Alexander Dugin]. “Ar Eh Is Os Ur.” Giperboreya, no. 1 (Vilnius: Fravarti, 1991): 3–7. Zjuganov, G. Stato e Potenza. Parma: Edizioni All’insegna del Veltro, 1999.

Index

Abellio, Raymond, 39, 90 Abkhazia, 228, 232, 239n7, 242n54 Action française, 88 Âge d’or, 41 Ahnenerbe, 7, 9, 51n53, 65, 75n44, 100, 118n19–118n20, 242n64 Aksay, Hakan, 173n114 Aksiyon, 156, 160, 168n21, 171n69–171n70 Alasania, Giuli, 149 Alemdaroğlu, Kemal, 159, 160, 164, 173n119 Aliot, Louis, 20 Alksnis, Viktor, 45, 81, 225, 226, 229, 231 Alleanza Nazionale (AN), 107, 110, 115 Alliance for the Future of Austria, 237 All-Polish Youth, 235 Alternativa Europea, 46, 52n89, 132, 133 Alternative tercériste, 88 Amadou, Robert, 46 Amanecer Dorado, 207, 213n53, 216n93, 216n95, 217n103, 217n106 American Renaissance, 80 Amis du Grand Reich allemand (AGRA), 84, 104 Anderson, Benedict, 177, 190n7, 245 Andican, Ahat, 148 Andreev, Aleksei, 225 Annan, Kofi, 158 Anpilov, Viktor, 82 Ansembourg, Jean-Marie d’, 41

anti-Americanism/anti-American/anti-US, viii, 20, 64, 67, 69, 70, 83, 85, 108, 117, 126, 130, 139n30, 145, 149, 151, 152, 158, 160, 225, 231, 238 Anti-Communism, 81, 83, 85, 117, 198 Antiglobalization, 15, 108, 121n92 Antiliberalism/anti-liberal, xii, xiii, 3, 28n57, 31n108, 69, 71, 75n52, 86, 87, 251 Anti-Semitism/anti-semite, 3, 4, 5, 36, 38, 67–68, 75n50, 89, 101, 127, 133, 138n12, 254, 273 Anti-system, 80, 198 Anti-Zionism, 6, 88, 134, 135 Antyufeev, Vladimir (alias Vadim Shevtsov), 225 Arktogeia (publishing house), 27n25, 83, 151, 168n32, 247 Arktos, 14, 120n64, 140n61, 213n54, 247, 248, 255 Ars Magna, 88, 94n8, 139n41 Aryan, 5, 9, 12, 13–14, 15, 26n10, 40, 42, 50n26, 51n49, 51n53, 51n55, 84, 100–101, 118n19–118n20, 181, 242n64, 249 Ascari, Alberto, 231, 238 Asya-Avrupa, 148, 167n16, 168n18, 257 Ataka, 16, 22, 236 Atatürk, Mustafa Kemal, 147, 148, 149, 155, 162, 167n11, 246 Ateney, 92, 96n44, 234 259

260

Index

Atlanticism, 68, 116, 155, 164, 170n60 Attila, 14, 160, 167n13, 172n93, 183, 191n60, 250 Austria, vii, 21, 22, 51n55, 185, 193, 199, 202, 204, 209, 237, 249 Austria Freedom Party (FPÖ), 21 Avatar éditions, 88 Avdeev, Vladimir, 87 Avrasya Seçeneği (Eurasian alternative), 148 Avrasya, Yeni, 148, 167n16, 171n71–171n72, 171n74, 247, 248, 257 Aydın, İbrahimov, 151, 168n34, 250 Aydınlık, 158–159, 164, 171n81 Aygazete, 148 Ayhaber, 148, 167n16 Ayoub, Serge, 116 Aytav, Erkam Tufan, 149, 156 Aytmatov, Chingiz, 149 Aznar, José María, 134, 135 Babakov, Alexander, 22 Baburin, Sergei, 45, 81, 107, 108, 225, 226, 229, 231 Bagapsh, Sergei, 232 Bagramov, Eduard, 152 Bahçeli, Devlet, 161, 162 Baillet, Philippe, 38, 40, 41, 50n30–50n31, 86, 90, 245 Barcelona Declaration, 200, 213n52 Barikád, 181, 191n59 Barkashov, Alexander, 225, 239n6, 255 Bataille, Yves, 65, 66, 131, 138n16, 139n34, 139n39, 231 Battarra, Marco, 45, 52n78, 107, 121n87, 245 Bau, Ramón, 12, 130, 136 Beaur, Fabrice, 95n32, 231, 232–233 Beck, André-Yves, 129, 132 Belgium, 21, 27n49, 36, 41, 46, 52n84, 79, 81, 83, 84, 87, 131, 135, 138n7, 200, 206, 230, 238, 247 Benoist, (de) Alain, vii, 12, 14, 36, 38–39, 40, 41, 43, 46, 50n33–50n34, 50n37, 51n43, 52n66, 53n94, 68, 81, 84–86, 87, 88, 90, 92, 94n2, 95n18–95n20, 95n23, 95n29, 129, 131, 132, 138n23, 139n30, 213n54, 233, 247, 254, 255

Berlusconi, Silvio, xiv, 19, 22, 30n88, 107–108, 112, 115 Biès, Jean, 40, 41, 86 Bilici, Abdülhamit, 164, 171n70, 173n113 Binet, René, 127 Black Hundreds (Chernaya sotnya), 3, 4, 6, 25n2, 42, 43, 251 Bloc identitaire, vii, 79, 92, 93, 95n16, 96n43, 134, 204 Blot, Yvan, 23, 93 Bonilauri, Stefano, 110–111 Bordes, Arnaud, 90 Boreal Europe, 82 Borghezio, Mario, 112, 114, 116, 122n117–122n118, 122n121–122n122 Bosnia-Herzegovina, 16 Bouchet, Christian, 12, 45, 46, 68, 82, 84, 87–88, 89, 92, 94n7–94n8, 95n14, 129, 132, 133, 134–135, 138n13, 138n21–138n22, 138n25, 139n30, 139n40, 140n50, 141n74, 246 Bourbon-Parma Sixtus, Henry of, 22 Bouzard, Thierry, 41 Bovdunov, Alexander, 241n42 Breker, Arno, 39 BRICS, 21 British National Party (BNP), 21, 115, 135, 201, 236, 243n79–243n80 Brod, Alexander, 237 Brown International, 193, 209 Brunot, Patrick, 232, 242n47–242n48, 246, 257 Bulgaria, 16, 29n72, 135 Bulut, Arslan, 148 Byshok, Stanislav, 238, 243n85, 246 Carvalho, Olavo de, 12, 27n47, 71n1 Casa Pound, 111, 112, 113–114, 123n138, 201, 204, 206, 208, 209, 213n59–214n60, 216n95 Castrillo, Jean, 81 Caucasus, 5, 84, 92, 146, 147, 148, 155, 156, 167n4, 176, 179 Çeçen, Anıl, 147, 167n11, 246 CEDADE (Spanish Circle of Friends of Europe), 12, 27n45, 40, 41, 46, 126, 127–128, 130, 136, 138n9, 196, 200, 209, 213n54, 246

Index Center for Conservative Research, xiv, 55, 57, 63, 64, 66, 67, 69, 75n46, 76n62 Center for Eurasian Strategic Studies (ASAM), 148, 152, 168n19, 169n39–169n40, 246, 253 Center for Monitoring Democratic Processes “Quorum”, 229 Center for Special Metastrategic Studies, 44 Center Saint-Paul, 91 Central Asia, 5, 28n53, 84, 92, 146, 147, 148–149, 156, 167n4, 167n16, 170n60, 171n70, 172n107, 180, 183, 241n32, 274 Central Energy Italian Gas Holding, 19 Champetier, Charles, 38, 86, 213n54, 247 Chanclu, André, 91 Chauprade, Aymeric, 20, 94n6, 95n15 Chernyshev, Albert, 153, 158, 159, 160, 160–161, 170n52, 172n91 Chilean, 40 Chriqui, Mordekhai, (Rav), 89 Christian; Christianity, xii, 5, 12, 20, 21, 22, 40, 80, 89, 99, 102, 103, 115, 133, 176, 181, 198, 201, 210, 250 Circle Taliban, 113 Civic Control Association, 233, 236 Clemente Graziani, 101 Codreanu, Corneliu, 38, 105, 106, 120n67 Collectif France-Russie, 91 Color revolution, 62, 74n31, 224, 226, 237, 243n73 Commonwealth of the Independent States–Election Monitoring Organization (CIS-EMO), 224–225, 226–229, 231, 232, 233, 234–236, 237, 238–239, 240n12, 240n25–240n26, 240n28, 242n52 Communism, xi, 4, 5, 8, 9, 11, 60, 64, 83, 98, 102–103, 106, 195, 241n36, 256 Communitarian National-European Party (PCN), 230 Conscience européenne, 83, 138n7, 247 Conservative Revolution/Conservative Revolutionary, xi, xii–xiii, 4, 7, 10, 11, 14, 37, 46, 56, 65, 72n4, 79, 95n26, 98, 111, 113, 130 Conspiracy theories; conspiracy theory, 12, 39, 50n39, 64, 66, 79, 89

261

Creyelman, Frank, 233 Crimea, 21, 24, 28n56, 30n90, 31n108, 87, 91, 113, 203, 215n80, 233, 237, 239, 251 Crowley, Aleister, 45 Cuadrado Costa, José, 127, 138n7, 247 Cultural Exchange Association, 234 Cumhuriyet, 158, 160, 161, 164, 172n93, 172n103 Cyprus, 17, 22, 29n77–29n78, 158, 159–160, 162, 172n96, 194, 202, 208, 273 Czech Republic, 18, 208, 216n88 Czech-Russian Bank, 22, 94 Darentière, Philippe, 91 De Benoist, Alain, vii, 12, 14, 36, 38, 40, 41, 43, 46, 50n33–50n34, 50n37, 51n43, 53n94, 68, 81, 84–86, 87, 88, 90, 92, 94n2, 95n18–95n20, 95n23, 95n29, 131, 132, 138n23, 139n30, 213n54, 233, 247, 254, 255, 256 de La Blache, Paul Vidal, 37 De Lobel, Hilde, 92 Déat, Marcel, 126 Deckmyn, Johan, 233 Degrelle, Léon, 13, 27n45, 27n49, 46, 52n84, 195, 200–201, 213n56, 247 Della Chiae, Stefano, 127 Deltastichting, 38 Democracia Nacional, 130, 201, 214n62 Democratic Left Party (Demokratik Sol Parti-DSP), 147 Den’, 8, 43, 51n64, 85, 107 Denktaş, Rauf, 160, 161, 162 Devi, Savitri, 38, 40, 42, 45, 51n49, 249 Di Ar Edizioni, 38, 50n31, 104, 118n13, 120n63, 121n96, 245, 248, 252 Die Linke, 21, 235, 236, 237 Dissonances, 91 Diyalog Avrasya (Dialogue Eurasia), 149, 151, 168n22–168n26, 168n31, 168n33, 170n52, 246, 248, 250, 252, 254, 255, 256 Dobrenkov, Vladimir, 58, 59–60, 61, 62, 63, 71, 72n11–73n13, 73n18–73n20, 73n28–73n29, 74n32, 90, 247, 252 Doğan, Çetin, 148, 159, 163, 173n119 Domagała, Marcin, 235

262

Index

Donbass (conflict), 20, 112, 115, 122n116, 124n147 Donetsk People’s Republic, 112, 113 DPNI (Movement Against Illegal Immigration), 202, 214n71 Dubrovin, Alexander I., 3 Duma, 2, 18, 20, 25n3, 60, 62, 67, 85, 93, 113, 124n160, 155, 243n76, 253 Dunlop, John B., 85, 95n20, 248 Durruti, Buenaventura, 128 Dzhemal, Geydar, 6–7, 8, 26n20, 42–43, 45, 81, 107 Ecevit, Bülent, 147, 167n9, 248 Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO), 149, 231 Editions Machiavel, 230, 241n36, 256 Editions Pardès, 41 Edizioni All’insegna del Veltro, 38, 50n27–50n28, 105, 106, 111, 118n20, 120n63, 120n67–120n69, 120n75–120n76, 120n78, 121n96, 245, 247, 248, 249, 251, 252, 254, 256, 257 Egalité et réconciliation, 27n37, 79, 88, 89, 90, 96n34 Éléments, 39, 43, 47, 86, 90, 132, 138n23 Elementy, 27n32, 37, 43, 44, 46, 49n22, 50n39, 51n43, 51n45, 51n62, 52n65, 52n72, 52n82, 52n87, 68, 81, 86, 230, 245, 248, 252, 256 Eliaçık, İhsan, 150 Eliade, Mircea, 42 Emelianov, Valerii, 5 Emilio, Rodrigo, 46 EON (National Youth organization), 197 Eranos Circle, 65 Erasov, Boris, 149, 168n25, 248 Erdoğan, Recep Tayyip, xiv, 146, 174n125 Ergenekon, 15, 146, 163–165, 166, 167n4, 172n107–172n108, 173n113–173n115, 173n117–174n122, 250 Eruygur, Şener, 148, 161, 163 Eskin, Avigdor, 68, 89 Esotericism, 6, 35, 39, 47, 79, 86, 126, 130 Esparza, José Javier, 42, 51n45, 86 Estonia, 28n58, 40, 41, 228 Ethno-differential, 79 Eurafrica, 99

Eurasia: Journal, 52n68, 67, 108–110, 111, 119n55–119n56, 120n77, 121n96, 121n98–121n100, 229, 247, 252; Coordination Project, 231 Eurasia-Mediterranean Research Center (Centro Studi Eurasia-Mediterraneo— CeSEM), 109, 110 Eurasian: Eurasian Union (Avrasya Birliği), 148; Partnership (Avrasya Ortaklığı), 148; Observatory for Democracy and Elections (EODE), 230, 232, 242n49–242n50 Eurasianist Youth Movement, 231 Europamaxima, 91 European Center for Geopolitical Analysis (ECAG), 15, 230, 233, 235, 236, 237, 238, 239 European Liberation Front, 12, 45, 52n75, 107, 129, 140n61 European National Front, 205, 216n89 European Social Movement (Movimento Sociale Europeo—MSE), 115–116, 124n150, 124n152, 124n154, 126, 127, 134 European Union, viii, xi, xii, 16, 20, 129, 145, 148, 176, 187, 189, 194, 224, 228, 231, 273 Europeanism (Avrupacılık), 126, 150 Eurosiberia, 82, 84, 87, 92–93, 135 Evola, Julius, 7, 9, 10, 13, 14, 28n50, 35, 38, 39–40, 41, 42–43, 45, 46, 47, 49n5–49n6, 50n25, 50n31, 50n34, 52n85, 65–66, 79, 80, 84, 86, 90, 95n28, 98–102, 105, 111, 113, 116, 117n9–118n14, 118n16–118n17, 118n20–118n21, 118n25–118n27, 118n29–118n30, 118n37–118n39, 120n67, 121n93, 122n117, 124n156–124n158, 126, 130, 132, 139n34, 198, 200, 207, 233, 245, 247, 248, 249, 252, 253, 254, 256 Excalibur, 40, 41 Farinacci, Roberto, 100, 118n16 Fasci d’Azione Rivoluzionaria (FAR), 101 Fascism/Fascist, viii, xi–xii, xiv, 1, 3, 4–5, 6, 7, 8–11, 13, 14, 19, 23, 26n18, 26n21, 28n63, 29n74, 30n104, 35, 39, 43, 44, 46, 47, 48n1, 49n7, 49n11,

Index 50n25, 50n34, 52n88, 53n91, 64, 65, 66, 68, 75n51, 75n53, 79–80, 83, 86, 88, 94n1, 97, 98, 99–100, 101, 103, 104, 106, 107, 108, 110–112, 115, 116, 117n3, 117n7, 118n23–118n24, 118n35, 119n52–119n53, 119n59, 120n64, 121n82, 121n96, 121n102, 122n107, 123n138, 124n153, 128, 133, 134, 138n6, 138n19, 140n70, 156, 181, 198, 211n8, 212n24, 212n41, 214n60, 215n83, 217n101, 225, 229, 230, 233, 239n6, 241n30–241n31, 241n34, 245, 246, 247, 252, 254, 255, 256, 275 Faye, Guillaume, 14, 37, 82, 84, 92, 95n16 Fellow travelers, xiv, 15, 24, 63 Feltin-Tracol, Georges, 91, 96n40 Ferreira da Silva, Vicente, 12 Fiamma Tricolore, 107, 113, 115, 123n124, 135, 217n98, 236 Fichte Bund, 84 Fidesz, 14, 18, 24, 176, 183, 184, 185–186, 187, 188, 189n4, 191n60, 191n67, 191n72, 250, 256 Fil d’Ariane, 41 Finland, 14, 15 Flash Magazine, 88 Flemish Bloc (Vlaams Blok), 37, 115, 131 Flemish Interest (Vlaams Belang), 21, 92, 197, 233, 236, 237 Florian Geyer Club, 68, 76n61, 256 Forza Nuova, 112, 115–116, 123n143, 124n149, 201, 204, 205, 208, 214n62, 216n88 Fourth Political Theory, 11, 14, 64, 68, 69, 84, 89, 109, 112, 120n72; France, 130 France, vii, xiv, 11–12, 19, 20, 23, 24, 27n42, 30n90, 30n93, 30n96, 30n102, 36–37, 39, 40, 41, 46, 49n7, 79–80, 82, 84, 86, 87, 89, 91, 93–94, 94n1, 95n16, 125, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 134–135, 137, 138n17, 139n30, 140n47, 140n65, 193, 199, 201, 205, 207, 216n88, 228, 232, 241n34, 245, 249, 251, 255, 273 Franco, Fransisco, 125 Francoist, 46, 126 Fravarti, 42, 51n52, 51n55, 248, 257 Freda, Franco, 38, 128 Free Network South (Freies Netz Süd), 205–206

263

Front Européen de Libération (ELF), 45, 82, 87, 140n52 Fyssas, Pavlos, 193 Gaddafi, Muammar, 87, 105, 230 Galiyev, Mirsaid Sultan, 147, 167n7 Garaudy, Roger, 38 Gaullist, 80, 90, 93, 96n47 Gazprom, 16, 18, 19, 21, 187 Gengis Khan, 86, 151 Geopolitica, 98, 99, 110, 117n7, 121n96, 245, 249 Geopolitics, 12, 37, 39, 48n1, 64, 65, 66, 69, 75n47, 75n50, 76n54, 80, 81, 83, 85, 87, 89, 98, 99, 121n96, 135, 149, 151, 154, 157, 159, 168n20, 169n36, 170n51, 171n75, 175, 178, 190n14, 232, 241n32, 250, 254 Germany, viii, 4, 5, 14, 21, 24, 26n8, 28n68, 30n100, 51n55, 75n45, 86, 100, 111, 128, 130, 140n47, 185, 193, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202, 205, 207–208, 216n88, 228, 234, 235, 242n64, 249, 251, 256, 276 Ghibellin, 99, 118n14 Giperboreya, 12, 42–43, 51n55, 51n58–51n59, 248, 254, 257 Gladio, 97, 101, 102, 103, 111, 117, 117n2, 118n40, 119n62, 249, 253 Glazunov, Ilya, 22, 106, 120n79 Glazyev, Sergei, 157 Global Revolutionary Alliance, 15, 66, 69 Globalization, 89, 108, 130, 149, 151, 152, 154, 168n31, 188, 194 Gnerre, Orazio Maria, 69, 111–112, 122n111, 122n113, 249 Göka, Erol, 150, 168n30, 169n35, 249 Golden Dawn, viii, xiv, 15, 17, 22, 68, 193–194, 195, 196, 197–198, 199, 200–206, 207–208, 209–210, 210n1, 210n3, 210n4–211n8, 211n10, 211n13, 211n18–211n19, 211n21–212n23, 212n26–212n28, 212n31–212n32, 212n34, 212n36–212n40, 212n42, 213n46, 213n50, 213n52, 213n55–213n56, 213n58, 214n61–214n62, 214n64–214n67, 214n69, 215n74–215n76, 215n81, 215n82, 215n84, 215n86–215n87,

264

Index

216n90, 216n91, 216n94, 217n96–217n98, 217n101, 217n105–217n107, 218n109, 218n110–219n116, 246, 248, 249, 253 Gollnisch, Bruno, 20, 135, 141n74 Golovin, Evgenii, 6–7, 35, 47, 68, 75n51 Golytsin, Dmitri P., 2 Gondinet, Georges, 41 Graziani, Tiberio, 108, 110, 121n96, 229, 241n32 Graziani, Tiberio, 108, 110, 121n96, 229, 241n32 Greater Europe from Dublin to Vladivostok, 81 Greece, viii, xiv, 11, 15, 17, 21, 29n73, 29n76, 103, 119n62, 159, 167n12, 193, 194, 198, 199, 201, 202, 203–204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 210, 210n4–210n5, 211n7, 213n43, 213n55, 214n68, 215n75, 215n80, 216n88, 216n90, 218n114, 219n117, 237, 248, 249, 252, 253, 276 Griffin, Nick, 21, 22, 30n98, 115, 135, 204, 207, 236, 237, 243n78–243n79 Grigmunt, Vladimir A., 4 Groupement de recherches et d’études pour la civilisation européenne (GRECE), 12, 23, 36–37, 38–39, 44, 50n32–50n33, 83, 84, 85, 86–87, 88, 90, 92, 93, 95n22, 129, 131, 201, 247, 249; Greece, 211n21 Gubarev, Pavel, 112 Guénon, René, 7, 12, 35, 39–40, 41, 47, 49n4, 50n26, 65, 79, 80, 84, 86, 89, 90, 94n2, 95n28, 96n37, 100, 105, 246, 256 Guez, Léo (Rav), 89 Gülen Fethullah, 149 Guyot-Jeannin, Arnaud, 90 Hallier, Jean-Edern, 86 Haudry, Jean, 90 Haushofer, Karl, 37, 83, 85, 198 Heartland, xii, 85, 86, 108, 139n34, 153, 170n60 Heidegger, Martin, 10, 12, 27n36, 64, 65, 67, 75n41 Herzog, Johann, 22 Heydrich, Reinhard, 9 Hiperbórea, 41, 42, 46

Hitler, Adolf, 9, 10, 26n9, 40, 45, 46, 51n47, 51n49–51n50, 52n80, 53n91, 75n51, 105, 194, 195, 198, 199, 200, 207, 211n17, 213n56, 247, 249, 250, 252, 254 Hopf, Ted, 175, 189n1, 250 Hungarian Dawn, 207 Hungary, xiv, 11, 14, 18, 21, 24, 28n54, 29n85–29n86, 68, 175–176, 177–178, 179, 180–181, 182, 183–185, 186–188, 189, 189n3–189n4, 190n25, 191n46, 191n51, 191n61, 191n70–191n71, 192n73, 192n75, 193, 201, 202, 208, 245, 250, 273, 274 Hürriyet, 165, 174n121–174n122 Hussein, Saddam, 87, 153, 225, 232 Hyperborea, 12, 13, 40, 92 Identitarianism, 69, 76n55 Identity Movement, 83, 134, 135 İlhan, Atilla, 147, 160, 167n13, 168n20, 172n93, 250 İlhan, Suat, 149, 157, 161, 168n20, 171n75, 250 İmer, Sencer, 161 Imperialismo pagano (pagan imperialism), 35, 49n6, 99, 118n13, 248 Institut de la démocratie et de la coopération (IDC), 93 Institut du Bon Pasteur, 91 Institute of Dynamic Conservatism, 66, 68 International Expert Center for Electoral Systems (ICES), 233 Interparliamentary Assembly of the CIS Member Nations (IPA CIS), 226 Iran, Iranian, 10, 13, 68, 83, 105, 116, 148–149, 152, 156, 158, 161, 167n12, 170n60, 171n70, 177, 183, 191n59, 191n67, 256 Islam/Islamic/Islamization, viii, xiv, 5, 13, 38, 42, 50n26, 51n60, 69, 82, 84, 105, 107, 111, 116, 120n64–120n65, 129, 131, 139n38–139n39, 152, 155, 170n60, 181, 228, 246, 248, 252, 276 Islamism/Islamist, vii, 12, 42, 135, 146, 147, 149, 153–154, 190n14, 203, 254 Islamophobia/Islamophobic, Islamophobe, viii, 13, 16, 116, 130, 131, 134, 135, 273

Index Israel/Israeli, 10, 68–69, 89, 127, 203, 233 Italian Social Movement (Movimento Sociale Italiano—MSI), 97–102, 101, 103, 104, 106, 107, 110, 116, 119n62, 121n81, 124n155 Italian Social Republic, 97, 101 Italy, vii, xiv–xi, 7, 11, 12, 13, 19, 28n51, 30n89, 41, 50n27–50n28, 69, 76n57, 97–98, 99, 100–101, 102–103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 119n58, 121n92, 125, 127, 130, 135, 181, 193, 199, 200, 201, 206, 207–208, 214n61, 216n88, 217n98, 219n116, 241n32, 247, 249, 254 Izborsky Club, 14, 28n57, 65, 66, 68, 105, 120n71, 251 Izvestiya, 153, 170n54, 248 Jacquard, Jean-Claude, 83 Jeune Europe, Young Europe, xii, 44, 82, 83, 95n11, 104, 105, 108, 119n57, 126, 127, 130, 133, 138n1–138n2, 245 Jobbik, xiv, 14, 18, 22, 29n84, 30n104, 68, 135, 176, 181, 182, 183–184, 185–186, 187–188, 189, 190n26, 191n55, 192n78, 192n81, 193, 201, 204, 206, 215n83, 216n93, 236, 237, 250 Judaism, 89 Justice and Development Party (JDP), 150, 153, 158, 163, 164, 171n82, 174n125 K4A (August 4th Party), 194–195 Kabbalah, 89 Kaczyński, Jarosław, 235 Kadirbayev, Aleksandr, 169n41 Kalın, İbrahim, 150, 168n27 Kalki (journal), 40, 41 Kamrakov, Aleksei, 240n14 Karadağ, Daşar, 158 Karadzic, Radovan, 139n39 Karmatsky, Viktor, 226, 240n14 Karpat, Kemal, 149, 168n23, 208, 250 Kasidiaris, Ilias P., 22, 193, 197, 202, 203, 206, 207 Kaynak, Mahir, 150 Keleti nyitás, 176, 191n63, 191n66, 191n68 Kemalists, 153–154, 161, 166, 171n80 Khasbulatov, Ruslan, 225, 241n38

265

Kılınç, Tuncer, 148, 161, 163, 172n98 Kiyv, Kiev, 18, 25n5, 115, 186, 208, 240n12 Kjellén, Johan Rudolf, 37 Klebanovich, Marina, 242n52 Klokotov, Nikolai, 43, 85, 86, 169n38 Kochetkov, Aleksei, 225–226, 227, 228, 229, 233, 236, 238, 240n13–240n14, 240n28, 243n85, 246 Kochetkova, Marina, 226, 232, 242n52 Kommersant, 165, 173n116, 240n28 Komov, Aleksei, 114, 115, 123n133 Kosovo, 16, 108, 227 Kotleba, Marian, 18 Kovács, Béla, 18, 183, 188, 192n81, 236 Krasnaya Zvezda, 153, 161 Kremlin, vii, xiii, xv, 1, 11, 17, 22, 23–25, 28n57, 29n75, 29n82, 30n96, 30n103, 57, 70, 71, 91, 93–94, 159, 160, 164, 173n112, 226, 227–228, 229, 236, 237, 238, 243n73, 253 Krisis, 39, 43, 47, 86, 90 Kronshtadtsky, Yohann, 3 Küçük, Veli, 159, 160, 163, 164, 165, 166, 171n83, 173n110, 173n119 Kurginian, Sergei, 168n30 Kurtuluş Taşkent, 153 Kuznetsov, Alexander, 67, 136 L’idiot international, 130 Laloux, Jean, 43, 86 Latin America, 7, 126 Latsa, Alexandre, 91, 96n41 Latvia, 15, 28n58, 205, 208, 216n88, 218n109, 237 Latvian Russian Union, 237 Laurent, James, 68, 90, 96n36, 119n48, 246 Lavrov, Sergei, 228, 240n15, 241n29, 243n86 Law and Justice, 235 Le Gallou, Jean-Yves, 90 Le Monde, 31n107, 43, 52n67, 86, 138n4, 275 Le Pen Marine, vii, 20, 22, 25, 30n91–30n93, 30n95, 79, 82, 88, 95n15, 116–117, 125, 135, 141n74, 199, 213n48

266

Index

Le Pen, Jean-Marie, 22, 81, 82, 107, 115, 129, 134, 139n30, 141n74, 199, 201, 214n68 League of Polish Families, 235 Lecerf, Emile, 126, 138n18 Ledesma Ramos, Ramiro, 46, 127 Ledesma, Ramiro, 46, 127 Lepper, Andrzej, 15, 233, 234, 235 Les Deux Étendards, 38 Levalois, Christophe, 41, 46, 95n25 Liberal-Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR), 60, 73n24, 202, 229, 241n30, 255 liberalism/liberal/liberalization/liberalist, xii, 6, 8, 9, 11, 13, 18, 21, 24, 25n3, 43, 57, 58, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 67, 68, 70, 71, 72n4, 87, 88, 90, 133, 137, 176, 184–185, 186, 188, 189, 190n19, 200–201, 223, 229, 238, 251, 273, 274 Ligachev, Egor, 45, 81, 85 Limonov, Eduard, 12, 45, 47, 48n1, 53n93, 95n30, 130, 139n31, 204, 229, 241n30, 252 Litva, 76n60, 256 Llanos, Arturo Marián, 42 Llopart, Juan Antonio, 46, 125, 128, 132, 136–137, 141n75, 206 Logghe, Koenraad, 41 Lombardia-Russia Society, 114 Luczak, Piotr, 235 Lukashenka, Aliaksandr, 87 LUKoil, 16, 18, 73n13 Lutte du peuple (journal), 45, 95n14, 138n23, 139n43–140n44, 140n46, 231 M’Bala M’Bala, Dieudonné, 89 Mabire, Jean, 92 Mackinder, Halford John, 37, 85 Magna Hungaria, 18, 29n86 Mahan, Alfred Thayer, 37 Maidan, 123n139 Malliarakis, Jean-Gilles, 129 Malofeev, Konstantin, 17, 20, 22, 24, 94n6 Mamleev, Yuri, 6–7, 37, 85 Mărăcuţă, Grigore, 232 Maréchal-Le Pen, Marion, 20 Markov II, 3, 25n3 Marlaud, Jacques, 38 Martynowski, Marcin, 234–235

Marxism-Leninism/Marxism, 9, 98, 106, 201 Más Allá, 41 Mascré, David, 91 Meander, 197, 206 Mein Kampf, 100 Melentyeva, Natalya, 37 Metapolitics, 49n7, 84, 93, 94n1, 249 Metaxas, Ioannis, 194, 197, 198 Metin, Burhan, 150, 168n28 Michaloliakos, Nikolaos, 15, 28n64, 194, 195–196, 197, 198, 199, 201, 202, 203–204, 205–206, 209, 211n8, 211n21, 212n25, 212n40, 212n42, 215n79–215n80, 216n93, 252 Michaloliakos, Nikos, 15, 28n64, 194, 195–196, 197, 198, 199, 201, 202, 203–204, 205–206, 209, 211n8, 211n21, 212n25, 212n40, 212n42, 215n79–215n80, 216n93, 252 Michel, Luc, 86, 87, 95n32, 115, 139n39, 230, 231–233, 234, 235, 237, 238–239, 241n35, 242n44, 242n46, 242n54, 243n87, 252 Milá, Ernesto, 42, 126, 135, 138n6, 141n72, 252 Militant, 81 Millennium, 69, 76n57, 110, 111–112, 123n138 Milosević, Slobodan, 62, 73n29, 76n62, 224 Milyi Angel, 38, 39–40, 86 Minute, 80 Mohler, Armin, 14, 37 Molina, Eduardo, 46 Montenegro, 16 Mordrelle, Trystan, 86, 95n26 Moreau, Xavier, 20 Moscow, xii, xiv, xv, 2, 3–4, 5, 8, 15, 16–17, 18, 19–22, 23, 24, 25n2, 26n11–26n12, 27n24–27n26, 27n38, 28n69, 29n83, 30n98–30n99, 37, 43, 44–45, 49n23, 50n39, 51n52, 52n77, 52n81, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 62, 65, 66, 69, 72n10, 72n12, 73n15, 73n18, 74n36, 74n39, 75n45, 75n47, 80, 81–82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 90, 93, 98, 105, 106, 107, 108, 111, 113–114, 115, 116, 117, 117n4, 123n133, 123n137, 130,

Index 131, 153, 155, 157–158, 159–160, 162, 164, 165, 168n32, 171n76, 172n96, 186, 187–188, 189, 189n1, 202, 203–204, 207, 208, 215n81–215n82, 225, 227, 228, 230, 231, 234, 237, 240n14, 243n71, 243n75, 243n85, 246, 247, 248, 250, 251, 252, 253, 255, 256, 275 Moscow Bureau for Human Rights, 237 Moscow Patriarchate, 17, 19 Moscow State University (MGU-MSU), xiv, 8, 55, 56, 58, 59, 61, 62, 63, 65, 69, 70, 71, 72n9, 73n27–73n28, 74n30, 74n32, 74n35–74n36, 75n52, 76n62, 90, 98, 123n133, 187, 275 Motpol, 14, 28n59, 76n55 Movimento Antagonista, 45 Movimento Sociale-Fiamma Tricolore (MS-FT), 107, 236 Mudry, Thierry, 131 Müjdeci, Yaşar, 161 Munier, Dietmar, 14 Murelli, Maurizio, 106, 116, 121n81, 121n83, 122n119, 124n159, 252 Mussolini, Benito, 9, 10, 27n45, 53n91, 97, 99, 100–101, 115, 181, 182, 207, 250 Mutti, Claudio, 12, 13, 36, 38, 40, 41, 43–44, 45, 46, 50n26, 50n29, 52n68, 52n76, 68, 85, 86, 90, 98, 104–110, 111, 112, 114, 116, 118n20, 119n55–119n56, 119n62, 120n63, 120n66–120n67, 120n72–120n74, 120n77, 121n86, 121n95–121n96, 130, 246, 252 Nairn, Tom, 178, 190n29, 252 Narochnitskaya, Natalia, 20, 24, 93, 110, 121n101, 231 Naryshkin, Sergei, 20 Nasledie predkov, 87, 234 National Alliance (Italy- Alianza Nacional), 207 National Alliance (USA), 140n62, 205, 207, 248 National Alliance of Russian Solidarists, known by the Russian abbreviation NTS, 5 National and European Action Federation (FANE), 127, 132, 230

267

National Front (Front National), vii, xiv, 13, 19, 22, 25, 30n97, 30n102–30n103, 79, 81–82, 86, 88, 90, 91, 94, 125, 129, 130, 131, 135, 139n31, 193, 199, 201, 204, 205, 206, 209, 216n89, 230, 237, 241n33, 273, 275 National People’s Front (ELAM), 201, 202, 204 National-Bolshevik Party, 45, 48n1, 52n81, 229, 241n30, 252, 254 National-Bolshevism/National-Bolshevik, 46, 81, 84, 145, 146, 230, 238 National-Democratic Party of Russia, 81 Nationalisme et République, xvn1, 45, 52n74, 81, 82, 83, 256 Nationalist Action Party (Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi-MHP), 148, 161, 169n40 Nationalist Front, 202, 230 National-Socialism, 9 NATO, 16, 17, 20, 21, 24, 25, 89, 90, 97, 102, 107, 108, 115, 118n40, 132, 152, 155, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 170n60, 173n118, 226, 227, 228, 230, 241n37, 249 Nazarbayev, Nursultan, 105, 171n72, 248 Nazionale (National Vangard), 13, 102–103, 107, 110, 113, 115, 127–128 Nazism/Nazi/Neo-Nazism/Neo-Nazi, vii–viii, xi, xii, xiv, 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12–15, 23, 25, 26n8, 27n45, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 50n26, 51n47–51n49, 51n51, 51n53, 51n55, 51n57, 52n82, 65, 67–68, 75n44, 84, 86, 90, 95n26, 97, 100–101, 102, 104, 111, 115, 123n139, 126, 127, 128, 130, 132, 135, 137, 138n2, 139n31, 139n41, 195–196, 197, 198, 200–201, 203, 205–206, 207, 210n5, 211n14, 212n29–212n30, 212n34, 212n41, 213n52–213n53, 214n61, 214n64, 215n74, 215n84, 215n86–215n87, 216n90–216n92, 216n94, 217n96–217n97, 217n103, 217n106, 233–234, 238, 242n64, 246, 249, 251, 253 Neo-Ottomanists, 146, 150, 152–153, 154, 166 New Belgian Front, 37

268

Index

New European Order, 127, 200, 209, 211n15, 213n52 New Right, vii, xiv, 1, 8, 11–12, 13, 14, 23, 27n37, 27n46, 35, 36, 37, 38–39, 40, 41, 43, 45, 46, 47, 48n1, 49n7, 79–80, 81, 83, 84–85, 86, 87–88, 90, 93, 94n1, 95n20, 96n47, 97, 98, 109, 126, 128, 129–130, 131, 132–133, 136, 139n30, 201, 205, 229, 233, 241n31, 245, 254, 255, 257 New World Order, 27n47, 45, 71n1, 82, 89, 106–107, 152, 153, 167n16, 230–231 Niekisch, Ernst, 4, 10, 129, 130 Niklot, 233–234 Northern League (Lega Nord), vii, 19, 30n89, 98, 105, 111, 112–114, 116–117, 120n73, 122n118, 237 Nouvelle droite populaire, 92 Nouvelle École, 12, 39, 43, 47, 84, 86, 90, 95n24 Nouvelle Résistance, 12, 45, 87–88, 94n7, 95n14, 138n24, 139n29, 139n41, 140n50–140n52, 140n54, 241n34, 245 Nouvelles de Synergies européennes, 52n85, 87, 247 Novopole, 91, 96n38–96n39 NSDAP, 195, 199 Occultism/Occult, 7, 26n13, 35, 45, 51n55, 139n34, 141n73, 249, 252 Ochesenreiter, Manuel, 14 October 1917, Bolshevik Revolution, xii, 2, 4, 25n3 Odala, 233 Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), 223–224, 226, 227, 233, 237–238, 242n58, 243n76, 253 Öğüt, Kaan, 147, 167n10, 253 Ombruck, Gregory, 133 Orbán, Viktor, xiv, 14, 18, 29n85, 176, 184, 185–186, 187, 188, 189, 191n63–191n65, 192n76 Ordine Nuovo, 13, 101–102, 103, 112, 119n54, 119n61, 122n117–122n118 Ordo Templi Orientis, 45 Ordre Nouveau, 27n44, 91, 251

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), 231 Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), 223–224, 226, 227, 228, 231, 233, 236, 237, 238, 239, 240n15, 242n58, 243n76, 243n86, 253 Organizzazione Lotta di Popolo (OLP), 104, 138n16, 140n47 Orientations, 37, 43, 44, 47, 49n21, 255 Origini, 44, 106, 121n84, 255 Orion, 45, 95n24, 106–107, 112, 120n73, 122n119, 124n159, 252 Ortaylı, İlber, 149 Ortega y Gasset, José, 126, 127, 138n1 Orthodoxy (religion), 20, 81, 86, 90, 95n25, 121n101 Osipova, Irina, 114, 115, 123n136, 124n147 Osnovy geopolitiki, 37, 43, 48, 49n23, 145, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 157, 162, 164, 166, 169n38, 170n55, 248 Ossipov, Vladimir, 85 Outside lung, 83 Özcan, Ahmet, 150, 156, 168n29, 171n65 Özcan, Büze, 158 Özdağ, Ümit, 148, 168n19, 253 Özden, Kemal, 160 Palacios, Isidro J., 40–42 Palmeri, Andrea, 115, 124n146–124n147 Pamyat, 7, 36, 49n9, 75n51, 85, 94n8, 106, 107, 251, 253 Panagiotaros, Ilias, 193 Panarin, Alexander, 152 Pan-monarchism, 67 Papadopoulos, Georgios, 103, 194, 195, 210n4 Pappas, Christos, 195, 196, 201, 212n26, 217n107 Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), 224, 227 Parti Antisioniste, 88, 89, 90 Parti Communautaire National-Européen (PCN), 87, 95n32, 127, 131, 132, 138n7, 139n30, 140n52, 230, 231, 232, 234, 241n35, 242n44 Party for Freedom, 209, 236 Parvulesco, Jean, 39, 52n69, 56, 66, 72n2, 80, 86, 90, 131, 253

Index Patrintern, 202 patriotism/patriotic, 4, 5, 8, 23, 36, 43, 47, 80, 82, 111, 178, 198, 205, 216n88 Pauwels, Luc, 38, 83 Pavlov, Nikolai, 45 Pavlovsky, Gleb, 227, 243n73 People’s Party-Our Slovakia (LSNS), 18 People’s Struggle Organization, 231 People’s Will, 229, 231, 241n30 Perennialists, 79 Perinçek Mehmet, 158, 160, 163, 167n14, 171n81, 172n85, 174n124, 253 Perinçek, Doğu, 148, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162–163, 164, 165, 166, 173n110, 173n118–173n119 Pignacé, Christiane, 131 Pinar, Blas, 127 Piskorski, Mateusz, 15, 28n61–28n62, 233–235, 235–236, 237, 238, 242n65–242n66, 253 Platform for Catalonia (Plataforma per Catalunya), 206, 237 Plevris, Konstantinos, 194, 211n11, 253 Poland, 15, 17, 130, 193, 216n88, 228, 230, 233, 234, 235, 238, 242n57, 242n62, 242n68, 253 Poleshchuk, Alexander, 151 Pound, Ezra, 39 Primo de Rivera, José Antonio, 126, 198 Printemps français, 91 Prokhanov, Alexander, 8, 14, 43, 45, 81, 85, 105, 107, 204, 230 Proselkov, Alexander, 241n42 Punto y Coma, 41, 43, 86 Purishkevich, Vladimir M., 3, 4 Pushkov, Aleksei, 20, 113 Pussy Riot, 91 Putin, Vladimir/Putinism, xiii, xiv, 11, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 28n58, 28n68, 29n71, 29n76, 29n82, 30n88, 30n100, 30n106, 31n108, 56, 57, 58, 62, 70–71, 72n8, 76n58–76n60, 82, 87, 88, 91, 93, 113, 115, 123n141, 124n148, 160, 161, 162, 173n117, 176, 177, 182, 183, 187, 189, 217n104, 219n118, 224, 227, 232, 237, 238, 240n24, 251, 252, 253, 256 Rangel, António Carlos, 46

269

Ratzel, Friedrich, 37 Raumsinn, 85 Rauti, Pino, 101–102, 103, 107, 115, 119n45, 119n62 Rebis, 41 Red-brown, 8, 43, 45, 47–48, 86, 106, 107, 130, 230. See also National Bolshevism Rękas, Konrad, 235 Renouveau français, 88 Rerikh, Nikolai, 42 Réseau géopolitique européen, 88 Réseau identités, 84 Réseau radical, 88 Résistance!, 88 Rexism, 13 Reyhan, Hakan, 147, 167n8, 253 Right Sector, 111, 114, 123n139, 203 Rivarol, 80 Robert, Fabrice, 93, 96n43, 139n31 Roberto Fiore, 22, 115, 204 Rodina, 24, 93, 121n101, 157, 204, 227, 231 Rodzaevsky, Konstantin, 98 Rogozin, Dmitrii, 18, 20, 24, 93, 227, 231, 232 Romania, 10, 15, 29n86, 104, 167n12, 193, 205, 216n88 Rosenberg, Alfred, 100, 195, 200 Roudier, Richard, 84 Rushaylo, Vladimir, 227 Russia, 67, 72n10, 88, 158, 202, 204, 237 Russia Today, 23, 203, 215n76, 238 Russian All-People’s Union, 45 Russian Assembly (Russkoe sobranie), 2 Russian Folk Union (Soyuz russkikh lyudei), 3 Russian Image, 238 Russian Monarchist Party (Russkaya monarkhicheskaya partiya), 4 Russian National Unity (Russkoe natsional’noe edinstvo), 225, 239n6, 255 Russian Society for the Defense of Monuments (VOOPIIK), 6 Russian Society of Friends of Saddam Hussein, 225 Russkii poryadok, 225 Russkoe znamya, 3 Russophilia, 19, 21

270 Russophobia, 16, 187 Rutskoi, Alexander, 225, 230 Rybakov Rostislav, 149 Rybakov, Boris A., 5 Rzayev, Anar, 149 Salvini, Matteo, vii, 113, 116–117, 123n130–123n131, 124n160 Sampieru, Ange, 86, 95n27 Sánchez-Bas, Francesc, 40, 41 Sarkozy, Nicolas, 19–20 Satanism, 7 Savin, Leonid, 66, 241n42 Savitski, Petr, 168n24, 254 Sawiński, Kornel, 235 Schepens, Charles-Alban, 88 Schmitt, Carl, 10, 65, 86, 90 Schneider, Michel, 45, 81–82, 94n5, 139n30 Schuon, Frithjof, 12 secret army, 197, 212n31 Selçuk, İlhan, 164 Self-Defense of the Republic of Poland, 233 septentrion, 92, 139n34 Serbia, 16, 62, 73n29, 202, 207, 216n88, 217n107 Serrano, 40–43, 46, 51n47, 51n50, 51n59, 254 Shafarevich, Igor, 38, 50n28, 254 Shahanov, Muhtar, 149 Sharapov, Sergei F., 3 Shevardnadze, Eduard, 224 Shiia, 10 Siderov, Volen, 16, 22 Sieradzan, Przenysław, 235 Sievers, Wolfram, 51n53 Skurlatov, Valerii, 5 Slavophilism, Slavophile, 3, 5, 16, 35, 55, 81, 86, 93, 98 Slovakia, 18, 29n80, 29n81, 29n86, 208, 216n88 Smenoverkhovstvo, 4, 26n6 Social Movement Social Movement— Tricolor Flame, 236 Socialismo patriottico/Stato and Potenza, 109, 110–111, 119n56, 120n68, 121n102, 122n104, 257 Sol Invictus, 41, 95n25

Index Solzhenitsyn, Alexander, 168n30 Sombart, Werner, 38 Sonderweg, 2 Soral, Alain, 79, 88–89, 95n30, 96n33, 136, 255 Sorlin, Fabrice, 20 South Ossetia, 228, 239n7 South Stream, 18, 186 Southgate, Troy, 14, 46, 128, 133, 140n61, 255 Souverainistes, 87 Soviet Union (USSR), xi, xiii, 5, 7, 26n12, 37, 72n10, 98, 106, 127, 139n34, 146, 155, 231, 252, 255 Spain, xiv, 10, 11–12, 22, 36, 41, 42, 46, 52n89, 86, 125, 126, 127, 128, 130, 131, 133, 136–137, 138n12, 139n30, 140n62, 140n64, 193, 200–201, 206, 207–208, 213n51, 216n88, 246, 254, 276 Spain 2000 (Espanya 2000), 134, 207 Spengler, Oswald, 10, 38, 65, 100, 111 Speranskaya, Natella, 65, 66, 112 Spieler, Robert, 92, 96n42 Spykman, Nicholas John, 37 St. Petersburg, 2, 22, 57, 68, 90, 204 Staatsbriefe, 44 Stadler, Ewald, 237 Stalin, Joseph, 5, 6, 72n9, 110, 119n47, 127, 139n34, 167n7 Stepanov, Vladimir, 6, 40 Steuckers, Robert, vii, 12, 37, 39, 40, 41, 43–44, 46, 49n17, 49n21–49n22, 53n94, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 92, 93, 95n12, 95n24, 95n27, 131, 139n30, 139n33, 248, 255 Stichting Deltapers, 83 Strachen, Heinz-Christian, 21 Strasser, Otto, 12, 79, 130, 139n31 Strasserite, 79 Strategy of Tension, 13, 97, 98, 103, 119n62, 206 Suleymenov, Olzhas, 149 Sultanov, Shamil, 45 Süver, Akkan, 160 Svoboda, 115, 123n143, 135, 204 Sweden, 69, 135, 207–208, 218n110 Synergies européennes, 52n85, 87, 131, 247

Index SYRIZA, viii, 15, 17, 28n63, 29n75, 68 Szołucha, Marian, 235 Talat, Mehmet Ali, 162 Tanoüarn (de) Guillaume (Father), 90–91 Taraf, 164, 173n112, 173n114, 173n117 Taşar, Murat, 151, 169n35, 169n36, 255 Taylor, Jared, 80 Tchikin, Valentin, 45 Tekos (magazine), 38, 41, 83, 89 Terracciano, Carlo, 45, 98, 106–108, 116, 121n84, 121n89, 121n93–121n94, 255 Terre et Peuple, 79, 84, 92 Tezkan, Yılmaz, 151, 153, 169n35–169n37, 169n45, 171n66, 255 Third Continent, xi Third Position, 38 Third Way, xi, 10, 49n7, 80–81, 82, 128, 129, 138n17, 150, 241n31, 255 Thiriart, Jean-François, vii, xii, xvn1, 8, 12, 36, 44–45, 46, 52n68, 52n74, 52n76, 79, 81, 82, 83–84, 87, 95n10, 95n12, 104, 107, 109, 113, 119n54–119n55, 119n57, 121n86, 126–127, 128, 130, 138n3, 138n6–138n7, 138n18, 139n30, 140n49, 230, 232, 241n36, 252, 256 Thule, 12, 40–42, 44, 46, 138n9, 213n54, 246 Tikkoun Olam Center, 89 Topuz, Ali, 161 Torresano, Alberto, 128, 138n18 Totalité, 41 Traditionalism/Traditionalist, 7, 12, 26n18, 28n50, 35, 36, 40, 41, 47, 49n12, 49n17, 50n25, 50n40, 55, 64, 70, 86, 90–91, 93, 95n28, 99–100, 101, 105, 108, 109, 111, 113, 116, 120n65, 128, 139n26, 153–154, 159, 166, 182, 183, 248, 254, 255, 256 Tramontane House (Casal Tramuntana), 206, 207, 216n93, 216n95 Trans-European Dialogue, 232, 242n52 Transnistria, 87, 225, 228, 231–232, 234, 239n7, 251 Trubetzkoy, Nikolai, 85 Trud, 162, 172n106, 248 Tsinker, Alexander, 233 Tsipras, Alexis, viii, 17

271

Tulaev, Pavel, 87, 92, 234 Turan, Turanian, 14, 28n53–28n54, 86, 146, 179–181, 182, 183–184, 185, 191n40, 191n47, 273 Turáni Tarsaság, 179, 190n34 Turanism, 14, 28n54, 170n60, 175, 179–180, 181, 183, 184, 185, 189n3, 191n55, 191n57, 245, 273 Turkey, xiv, 11, 14, 15, 18, 21, 98, 99, 145–146, 147, 148–149, 150, 151, 152–156, 157–158, 159, 160–164, 165, 166, 167n3–167n4, 167n12, 167n14, 168n18–168n19, 169n35, 169n37, 169n39, 169n41, 169n46, 169n50–170n52, 170n54, 170n60, 171n66, 171n73, 171n76, 172n96–172n97, 172n104, 173n110, 173n112, 173n116, 173n119, 177, 182, 183, 184, 191n51, 191n70, 201, 203, 228, 250, 251, 273, 274 Turkish Republic of Norther Cyprus (TRNC), 158, 160, 161 Turkists, 146, 148, 152, 154, 166, 167n6 Udam, Haljand, 41 Ukraine, 5, 18, 20, 24, 25, 28n58, 29n80, 30n94–30n95, 30n101, 74n31, 75n53, 81, 82, 91, 95n13, 111, 112, 115, 117, 135, 176, 186, 188, 192n75, 202, 203, 208, 224, 226, 227–228, 233, 235, 236, 237, 238, 240n15, 240n18–240n19, 240n21, 241n42, 243n73, 243n80, 256 Ülkü Ocakları, 161 Ulusal (Nation), 147, 160, 167n8–167n11, 167n13, 246, 248, 250, 253 Ulusal Kanal, 159, 162, 164 Ulusalcı groups, 156, 158, 171n80 Ulusalcılık (nationalism), 150, 167n6 Ünaltay, Altay, 150, 169n48 Union of the Russian People (Soyuz russkogo naroda), 3 Unité radicale, 88 United Kingdom, xii, 14, 21, 59, 99, 185 United States, xii, 12, 13, 15, 37, 44, 59, 64, 69, 72n12, 80, 82, 83, 84, 86, 87, 89, 90, 106, 115, 139n34, 149, 152, 153, 162, 164, 170n60, 172n96, 193, 201, 203, 205, 207–208, 228, 230, 236, 239

272

Index

Ustryalov, Nikolai, 4 Valentini, Valentino, 19 Vámbéry, Ármin, 180, 191n41, 256 Van der Bruck, Arthur Moeller, 10 Vandersmissen, Jean-Pierre, 231, 232 Vardon, Philippe, 93, 96n43, 96n45, 134, 140n66 Vasiliev, Dmitri, 7 Vernole, Stefano, 109, 121n100, 231, 256 Vial, Pierre, 84, 90, 92 Virga, Andrea, 111, 116, 122n107–122n110, 124n157, 256 Vivenza, Jean-Marc, 86, 95n28 Vlaams Belang, 21, 92, 135, 209, 233 Vlasov, Andrei, 5 Völkisch, 51n55, 72n4, 79, 80, 83, 84, 94n3, 130, 131, 135, 233 Volodin, Eduard, 43, 45, 107 Von List, Guido, 51n55 Von Ungern-Stenberg, Baron Roman, 42, 51n54, 67, 75n49, 92 Vona, Gábor, 18, 68, 183, 187–188, 191n55, 192n78 Vouloir, 37, 47, 49n17, 49n21, 52n85, 52n90, 87, 95n24, 95n27, 132, 247, 248, 255 Wadera, 233 Waffen-SS, xii, 26n17, 27n45, 51n57, 75n51, 94n3, 195, 246 Wehrmacht, 26n9, 97, 252 Werkgroep Traditie, 41 White Power, 205, 213n49, 255, 275, 276 Workers’ Party (İşçi Partisi), 145, 148, 158, 159, 160, 161, 163, 165, 166 World Congress of Families, 114 World War II, xii, 8, 44, 75n43, 75n51, 81, 83, 89, 99, 101, 103, 104, 118n37, 180, 181, 200, 230

Yakunin, Vladimir, 16 Yanov, Alexander, 85, 95n20, 257 Yanukovych, Viktor, 227 Yarın, 150, 153–154, 156, 157, 163, 168n22, 168n27–168n29, 169n44–169n45, 169n48–169n49, 170n64–171n68 Ya—russkii, 234 Yeltsin, Boris, 8, 45, 48, 81, 83, 225–226, 230 Yeni Çağ, 158 Yeniçeri, Özcan, 148, 156, 168n18, 171n73, 257 Yockey, Francis Parker, 12, 52n75, 127, 129–130, 138n13, 246 Young Europe, xii, 44, 82, 83, 104, 105, 108, 126, 127, 130, 133 Youth Front, 106, 230 Yushchenko, Viktor, 227 Yuzhinsky Circle, 6–7, 26n14, 37, 40, 42, 47, 75n51, 87, 251 Zadruga, 233 Zaitsev, Anatoly, 159, 160, 172n92 Zaman, 156, 160, 164, 171n70, 173n113, 174n122 Zarifullin, Pavel, 158, 173n110, 231, 234 Zavtra, 43, 76n58, 105, 204, 225, 230, 240n13 Zeman, Miloš, 18 Zeybek, Namık Kemal, 148, 156, 167n15–167n16, 257 Zhirinovsky, Vladimir, 60–61, 70, 73n24, 81–82, 202, 204, 209, 229, 232, 241n30, 242n47, 255, 257 Zuerst!, 14 Zündel, Ernst, 136 Zyuganov, Gennadii, 43, 45, 67, 82, 85, 105, 107

About the Contributors

Emel Akçali is assistant professor in the Department of International Relations and European Studies at the Central European University (CEU) in Budapest, and a former fellow at the CEU Institute of Advanced Study. She conducts research on the limits of neo-liberal governmentality outside the Western realm, and the challenges of state (trans-)formation in post-revolutionary Middle East and North Africa. Her main research interests thus span state and societal transformations, governmentality studies, and critical realist philosophy. She has collaborated with Mark Bassin on the development of non-Western and alternative globalist geopolitical discourses such as Eurasianism in Russia and Turkey, and with Umut Korkut on another non-Western geopolitical imaginary, namely Neo-Turanism in Hungary. Her most recent other publications are “‘Taming’ Arab social movements: Exporting neoliberal governmentality,” Security Dialogue 44, 2013; “Turkey’s Bid for European Union Membership: Between ‘thick’ and ‘thin’ conceptions of Europe,” Eurasian Geography and Economics LII 2012; and “Getting Real on Fluctuating National Identities: An Insight from Northern Cyprus,” Antipode 43/5, 2011. Jean-Yves Camus is associate researcher at IRIS (Institute des relations internationales et stratégiques) in Paris, working on political and religious extremism and minority rights. Before that he was Research Director at the Centre européen de recherches sur le racisme et l’antisémitisme (CERA) in Paris. He was a member of the “Conseil de l’Egalité d’Ile de France,” an official committee advising the Paris municipality on anti-discrimination matters. He is the author of seven books in French about the Front National and the rise of religious and political extremisms. He has been publishing

273

274

About the Contributors

scholarly articles and op-eds on the Front National, Islamophobia, AntiSemitism, and racism in France in French, German, and Spanish. Vügar İmanbeyli is assistant professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Istanbul Şehir University. He received a PhD in International Relations from Marmara University (Istanbul). His published titles include Eurasianism: Russia’s Search for an Identity (Istanbul, 2008); Azerbaijani-Ottoman Relations 1918 (Istanbul, 2006) and Ali Merdan Topcubasi (1865–1934): A Leading Intellectual and Representation of Independent Republic of Azerbaijan (Istanbul, 2003). He has also translated many works from Russian to Turkish (e.g., Alexander Dugin, Rus Jeopolitiği: Avrasyacı Yaklaşım [Russian Geopolitics: Eurasian Approach], Istanbul, 2003; Nikolay Trubetskoy, Avrupa ve Beşeriyet [Europe and Humankind], Istanbul, 2012). His academic interests cover regional studies, especially history, politics, foreign policy-making, and social transformation in ex-Soviet countries. He is currently working on Russian foreign policy, TurkishRussian relations, and the Eurasian dimension of Turkish foreign policy. Umut Korkut is Reader at Glasgow School for Business and Society at Glasgow Caledonian University. He received his PhD with magna cum laude at the Central European University in Budapest in 2004, and gained “Doçent” status from the Turkish High Education Authority in 2009. His current research focuses on social policy, liberalization, religion and gender rights, migration, democratization, and Europeanization in Central and Eastern Europe and Turkey. He is a follower of discursive institutionalist and ideational approaches in research. Among others, he has published in journals such as Europe-Asia Studies, Eurasian Geography and Economics, Social Politics, Parliamentary Affairs, Nationalities Papers, Economic and Industrial Democracy, and East European Quarterly. He has published two books, Liberalization Challenges in Hungary: Elitism, Progressivism, and Populism (Palgrave, 2012) and The Discourses and Politics of Migration in Europe (Palgrave, 2013). He is currently co-coordinating a project on the Construction of Family, Masculinity, Femininity and Population Issues in Friday Mosque Prayers in Turkey. Umut Korkut is co-convenor of the Political Studies Association Comparative European Politics Specialist Group. Marlene Laruelle is a research professor of International Affairs and associate director of The Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES), Elliott School of International Affairs, The George Washington University. She works on identity, nationalism, and ideologies in Russia and in Central Asia. She was a Visiting Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (2005–2006). She holds a PhD at the National Institute for Oriental Languages and Cultures in Paris. She has authored

About the Contributors

275

Russian Eurasianism: An Ideology of Empire (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), In the Name of the Nation: Nationalism and Politics in Contemporary Russia (Palgrave, 2009), and Russia’s Strategies in the Arctic and the Future of the Far North (M.E. Sharpe, 2013). Nicolas Lebourg is Researcher at the Observatoire des radicalités politiques (ORAP, Fondation Jean Jaurès). He is a participant in the IDREA program (Internationalisation des Droites Radicales Europe Amériques) at the Maison des Sciences de l’Homme-Lorraine. He has published many titles, including: Le Monde vu de la plus extrême droite (Perpignan: Presses Universitaires de Perpignan, 2010); François Duprat, l’homme qui inventa le Front National (Paris: Denoël, 2012); and Dans l’Ombre des Le Pen. Une histoire des n°2 du Front National (Paris: Nouveau Monde, 2012). Vadim Rossman is Visiting Professor at the International College for Sustainability Studies, Srinakharinwirot University, Bangkok, Thailand. Rossman received a PhD in philosophy and government from the University of Texas, Austin, in 1998. He is the author of Russian Intellectual Antisemitism in the Post-Communist Era (Nebraska University Press, 2002); In Search of the Fourth Rome (Moscow, 2014); and Capital Cities: Varieties and Patterns of Development and Relocation (Moscow, 2013). The updated and expanded edition of this book is under contract with Routledge (London, 2015). His recent research focuses on nationalism and capital cities in a global perspective. Giovanni Savino is currently Visiting Fellow at the Russian Institute of Advanced Studies, Sholokhov Moscow State University for the Humanities. He graduated in History from the University of Naples Federico II in 2008, with a work on the Ukrainian question in the Russian Empire, and received his PhD from the Italian Institute of Human Sciences—SUM in 2012, with a dissertation on the origins of Russian Nationalism in late Tsarist era. His research interests are Russian Nationalism in the late Imperial era and in contemporary Russia, the cultural and ideological roots of national identity, and the history of ideas in European and Russian contexts. His works include: “La Russia ostaggio del Nazionalismo,” MicroMega 2, 2014; “Okrainy Rossii i proekt natsionalizatsii Rossiiskoi Imperii” [Okrainy Rossii and the project of nationalizing the Russian Empire], Sotsiologicheskoe obozrenie 3, 2014. Anton Shekhovtsov is Visiting Senior Fellow at the Legatum Institute, Associate Research Fellow at the Institute for Euro-Atlantic Cooperation, and General Editor of the “Explorations of the Far Right” book series at ibidemVerlag. His main area of expertise is European radical right-wing parties and

276

About the Contributors

far-right culture. He is a member of the Editorial Board of Fascism: Journal of Comparative Fascist Studies. He is the author of New Radical Right-Wing Parties in European Democracies: Determinants of Electoral Support (Stuttgart: ibidem-Verlag, 2011), and co-editor of The Post-War Anglo-American Far Right: A Special Relationship of Hate (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014) and White Power Music: Scenes of Extreme-Right Cultural Resistance (Ilford: Searchlight and RNM Publications, 2012). He also published several articles in Russian Politics and Law, Patterns of Prejudice, and Europe-Asia Studies, among others. David Speedie is director of the Council’s program on U.S. Global Engagement. In 2007–2008, Speedie was also a senior fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. He worked at Carnegie Corporation of New York from 1992 to 2007. He joined the corporation as a program officer in the cooperative security program and was appointed program chair in March 1993, a position he held for almost twelve years. In 2004, he was appointed to serve as special advisor to the president and director of the corporation’s project on Islam. He was recruited from the W. Alton Jones Foundation, where he was codirector of the secure society program and directed, over a five-year period, programs in the arts, urban affairs, and the environment. He has been a book editor and writer for the National Endowment for the Arts’ Community Vision, a freelance journalist on politics for The Scotsman, and most recently, a reviewer for the International Journal of Middle East Studies. He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Sofia Tipaldou is a PhD candidate in International Relations and European Integration at the Autónoma University of Barcelona, Spain. Her research focuses on the Radical Right Movement in Russia since 2000. She holds a Master’s Degree in European politics from Viadrina University, Germany, and a BA in Economics from the University of Piraeus, Greece. Her broader research interests are nationalism, the radical right, social movements, and post-Soviet transformations. She is the author of “Rock for the Motherland: The White Power Music Scene in Greece,” in Shekhovtsov, Anton and Jackson, Paul, eds., White Power Music: Scenes of Extreme-Right Cultural Resistance, and co-author of “The Russian Radical Right Movement: Do they just make noise or have an impact as well?,” in Europe-Asia Studies 66, no. 7 (2014): 1080–101.