Anton Shekhovtsov, Andreas Umland: Is Aleksandr Dugin a Traditionalist? "Neo-Eurasianism" and Perennial Philosophy

Is Aleksandr Dugina Traditionalist?“Neo-Eurasianism” andPerennial PhilosophyANTON SHEKHOVTSOV AND ANDREAS UMLAND

“Frankly, I hate traditionalists—no matter whether they are of domestic orWestern origin. They are rabble. Good people do real work or wage wars,even if they have little chance of success. All over the world.”

Aleksandr Dugin, February 24, 2000

How relevant is Integral Traditionalism or Philosophia Perennis to an adequateassessment of the multifaceted phenomenon of post-Soviet Russian “neo-Eurasianism,” asa whole, and to the eclectic social doctrine of Aleksandr Dugin (b. 1962), in particular?1 Afinal answer to this question would be only possible if Dugin’s International EurasianMovement (Mezhdunarodnoe “Evraziiskoe dvizhenie”)—or another organization principallyinspired by him—were to rise to power and through its policies clarify which aspects of hisvague ideology are most significant.2 Nevertheless, in this article we shall evaluate thesignificance of Integral Traditionalism for Dugin’s ideological constructs. Such an attemptis motivated in part by Dugin’s repeated self-identification—despite the epigraph—as a“Traditionalist” and his numerous references to the classics of Integral Traditionalism.

The authors would like to thank Olena Sivuda for her help in the preparation of this text for publication.1We have raised selected issues dealt with in this article earlier in Andreas Umland, “Der ‘Neoeurasismus’

des Aleksandr Dugin: Zur Rolle des integralen Traditionalismus und der Orthodoxie für die russische ‘NeueRechte,’” in Macht – Religion – Politik: Zur Renaissance religiöser Praktiken und Mentalitäten, ed. MargareteJäger and Jürgen Link (Münster, 2006): 141–57; and Anton Shekhovtsov, “The Palingenetic Thrust of RussianNeo-Eurasianism: Ideas of Rebirth in Aleksandr Dugin’s Worldview,” Totalitarian Movements and PoliticalReligions 9:4 (2008): 491–506. The term “Philosophia Perennis” as it is used in modern intellectual historycarries a meaning different from Aldous Huxley’s philosophical concept of the same name. See Aldous Huxley,The Perennial Philosophy (London, 1946). For yet another connotation of the term see Nikolaus Lobkovits[Lobkowicz], Vechnaia filosofiia i sovremennye razmyshleniia o nei (Moscow, 2007).

2Alexander Höllwerth, Das sakrale eurasische Imperium des Aleksandr Dugin: Eine Diskursanalyse zumpostsowjetischen russischen Rechtsextremismus (Stuttgart/Hannover, 2007); Andreas Umland, “Kontseptualnyei kontekstualnye problemy interpretatsii sovremennogo russkogo ul'tranatsionalizma,” Voprosy filosofii, 2006,no. 12:75–77; idem, “Tri raznovidnosti postsovetskogo fashizma,” in Russkii natsionalizm: Ideologiia inastroenie, ed. Aleksandr Verkhovskii (Moscow, 2006), 223–62 (also available at www1.ku-eichstaett.de/

The Russian Review 68 (October 2009): 662–78Copyright 2009 The Russian Review

Is Aleksandr Dugin a Traditionalist? 663

A second reason for this investigation is the appearance of various journalistic and academicstudies that have classified Dugin as a “Traditionalist.”3

The growing interest among political scientists and other observers in Dugin and hisactivities is the result of his recent evolution from a little-known marginal radical right-winger to a notable and seemingly influential figure within Russia’s mainstream. Dugin’sgradual entry into the Russian intellectual élite and Moscow’s political establishment duringthe last fifteen years has been already described in some detail.4 In view of this literature,we will refrain here from demonstrating Dugin’s relative importance, as well as fromjustifying our attempt to analyze more thoroughly how his ideology relates conceptually toIntegral Traditionalism.

THE INTEGRAL TRADITIONALIST WORLDVIEW

The foundations of Integral Traditionalism as a systematic religious teaching were laiddown in the first half of the twentieth century by the French-born Muslim René Guénon

ZIMOS/forum/docs/Umland6.pdf [unless otherwise noted, all web sites referenced were last accessed onNovember 24, 2008]); idem, “Conceptual and Contextual Problems in the Interpretation of ContemporaryRussian Ultranationalism,” Russian Politics and Law 46:4 (2008): 6–30.

3See, for example, Konstantin Frumkin, “Traditsionalisty: Portret na fone tekstov,” Druzhba narodov, 2002,no. 6 (available at http://magazines.russ.ru/druzhba/2002/6/fr.html); Mikhail Sokolov, “Novye Pravyeintellektualy v Rossii: Strategii legitimatsii,” Ab Imperio, 2006, no. 3:321–55; and idem, “New Right-WingIntellectuals: Strategies of Legitimization,” Russian Politics and Law 47:1 (2009): 47–75.

4See, for example, Andreas Umland, “Die Sprachrohre des russischen Revanchismus,” Die Neue Gesellschaft:Frankfurter Hefte 42:10 (1995): 916–21; idem, “Toward an Uncivil Society? Contextualizing the Recent Declineof Parties of the Extreme Right Wing in Russia,” Weatherhead Center for International Affairs Working PaperSeries 3 (2002) (available at www.wcfia.harvard.edu/node/589; and also published in Demokratizatsiia 10:3(2002): 362–91); idem, “Formirovanie fashistskogo ‘neoevraziiskogo’ dvizheniia v Rossii: Put' AleksandraDugina ot marginal'nogo ekstremista do ideologa postsovetskoi akademicheskoi i politicheskoi elity, 1989–2001 gg.,” Ab Imperio, 2002, no. 3:289–304; idem, “Kulturhegemoniale Strategien der russischen extremenRechten: Die Verbindung von faschistischer Ideologie und gramscistischer Taktik im ‘Neoeurasismus’ desAleksandr Dugin,” Österreichische Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft 33:4 (2004): 437–54; idem,“Postsowjetische Gegeneliten und ihr wachsender Einfluss auf Jugendkultur und Intellektuellendiskurs inRussland: Der Fall Aleksandr Dugin 1991–2004,” Forum für osteuropäische Ideen- und Zeitgeschichte 10:1(2006): 115–47; Charles Clover, “Dreams of the Eurasian Heartland: The Re-emergence of Geopolitics,” ForeignAffairs 78:2 (1999): 9–13; John B. Dunlop, “Aleksandr Dugin’s ‘Neo-Eurasian’ Textbook and Dmitrii Trenin’sAmbivalent Response,” Harvard Ukrainian Studies 25:1–2 (2001): 91–127; Victor Yasmann, “The Rise of theEurasians,” The Eurasian Politician 4 (2001): 1 (also available at www.cc.jyu.fi/~aphamala/pe/issue4/yasmann.htm); Markus Mathyl, “Der ‘unaufhaltsame Aufstieg’ des Aleksandr Dugin: Neo-Nationalbolschewismus und Neue Rechte in Russland,” Osteuropa 52:7 (2002): 885–900; idem, “The National-Bolshevik Party and Arctogaia: Two Neo-fascist Groupuscules in the Post-Soviet Political Space,” Patterns ofPrejudice 36:3 (2003): 62–76; Marlen Lariuel’ [Marlène Laruelle], “Aleksandr Dugin, ideologicheskiiposrednik,” in Tsena nenavisti: Natsionalizm v Rossii i protivodeistvie rasistskim prestupleniiam, ed. AleksandrVerkhovskii (Moscow, 2005), 226–53; Marlène Laruelle, “Aleksandr Dugin. A Russian Version of the EuropeanRadical Right?,” Kennan Institute Occasional Papers 294 (2006) (also available at www.wilsoncenter.org/news/docs/OP294.pdf); idem, “(Neo)evraziitsy i politika: ‘Vkhozhdenie’ v gosstruktury i bezrazlichie kobshchestvennomu mneniiu?” Vestnik Evrazii – Acta Eurasica 1(31) (2006): 30–43; idem, “(Neo-)Eurasianistsand Politics: ‘Penetration’ of State Structures and Indifference to Public Opinion?” Russian Politics and Law47:1 (2009): 90–101; Vladimir Ivanov, Alexander Dugin und die rechtsextremen Netzwerke: Fakten undHypothesen zu den internationalen Verflechtungen der russischen Neuen Rechten (Stuttgart/Hannover, 2007);and Valerii Senderov, “Neo-Eurasianism: Realities, Dangers, Prospects,” Russian Politics and Law 47:1 (2009):24–46.

664 Anton Shekhovtsov and Andreas Umland

(1886–1951) and the metaphysician of Anglo-Ceylonese origin Ananda Coomaraswamy(1877–1974).5 Integral Traditionalists repudiate all achievements of modernity and, instead,subscribe to a mythologized and idealized interpretation of humanity’s past. Traditionalistsbelieve that a “perennial wisdom” or “primordial Tradition” was revealed to humanityduring a “Golden Age” (the Hindu Satya Yuga). As subsequent ages (Yugas) supersededeach other, the world slid into decadence, and “perennial wisdom,” as a single “spirituallanguage,” gradually disappeared from people’s life. In our current age—the so-called Eraof Vice (Kali Yuga)—the ancient cultural foundations of human existence have degeneratedcompletely: only traces of the “primordial Tradition” remain, and they survive only incertain world religions that Traditionalists understood to be dialects of the lost single“spiritual language.” Thus, according to Integral Traditionalists, a single “perennial wisdom”lies at the heart of different religions, and a primary objective of Traditionalists is to findand preserve those religious teachings that retain remnants of the “primordial Tradition.”One characteristic of Integral Traditionalism, then, is a comprehensive pessimism, that is,an absolute confidence in the doomed nature of modern decadent society. At the sametime, Integral Traditionalism refutes any possibility of improving or altering the allegedlydegraded state of the contemporary world through political engagement—itself a profoundly“modern” and foolish human activity.

Much has been published—in different languages—on the origins and developmentof Perennial Philosophy.6 Publishing houses such as Sophia Perennis or World Wisdomspecialize in Integral Traditionalist themes, and the number of Traditionalist websites ishigh. In Russia, the teachings of Integral Traditionalists have only recently become well-known. The Russian academic journal Voprosy filosofii first introduced Soviet readers toPerennial Philosophy in a 1991 article on René Guénon and Traditionalism that was writtenby the philosopher and translator Iurii Stefanov.7 The next few years witnessed an avalancheof articles, essays and translations of different quality published in magazines, journals,and websites. And some of the first essays to appear were published in Dugin’s periodicalsMilyi Angel and Elementy. With this brief sketch of the Traditionalist school, we can nowturn to a comparison of Perennial Philosophy with Dugin’s so-called “neo-Eurasianism.”

FROM GUÉNON VIA EVOLA TO DUGIN?

Throughout the 1990s, Dugin repeatedly claimed Guénon as his teacher, and at one time hedreamt of naming Rostov State University, to which he has some relation, after the French

5Marco Pallis, “A Fateful Meeting of Minds: A. K. Coomaraswamy and R. Guénon,” in The Essential AnandaK. Coomaraswamy, ed. Rama P. Coomaraswamy (Bloomington, 2004), 7–20.

6For thorough overviews of the philosophical school see, first and foremost, William W. Quinn, Jr., The OnlyTradition (Albany, 1997); and Harry Oldmeadow, Traditionalism: Religion in the Light of the PerennialPhilosophy (Colombo, 2000). For a comprehensive study of Coomaraswamy see Roger Lipsey, Coomaraswamy,Vol. 3, His Life and Work (Princeton, 1977). On Guénon see Paul Chacornac, The Simple Life of René Guénon(New York, 2001); Xavier Accart, Guénon, ou, Le renversement des clartés: Influence d’un métaphysicien surla vie littéraire et intellectuelle française (1920–1970) (Paris, 2005); and Robin E. Waterfield, René Guénonand the Future of the West: The Life and Writings of a 20th-Century Metaphysician (Wellingborough, 1987).

7Iurii Stefanov, “Rene Genon i filosofiia traditsionalizma,” Voprosy filosofii, 1991, no. 4:31–42.


esoteric.8 But it was less Guénon or Coomaraswamy than the Italian mystic, former Dadaist,and SS sympathizer Baron Julius Evola (1896/98–1974) who exerted a crucial influenceon the young Dugin. Evola’s pamphlet Pagan Imperialism probably had a formative impacton Dugin, who translated the text from German into Russian when he was still a youngman, in the late Soviet period.9 As a result, it is Evola’s peculiar (re-)interpretation ofTraditionalism, rather than Guénon’s original version of the doctrine, that has been used inmany texts written by Russian New Rightists inspired by Dugin’s initial elaborations onTraditionalism.10 And, as we see below, Evola’s journalistic and philosophical legacyconstitutes a deep revision, rather than consistent extrapolation, of Guénon’s IntegralTraditionalism.11

At their core, many of Dugin’s works are an amalgamation of Traditionalist concepts,Evola’s theories, geopolitical ideas, and the ideology of the German interwar “ConservativeRevolution.” The latter was congenial to Evola’s sociopolitical teachings and has beenrightly identified by Leonid Luks as an important source of Dugin’s doctrine.12 As is wellknown, the ideologists of the “Conservative Revolution”—Carl Schmitt, Arthur Moellervan den Bruck, Oswald Spengler, Ernst Jünger, and others—became passive accomplicesof the Nazi movement during the Weimar Republic by helping to undermine the legitimacyof Germany’s first democracy among the reading public. Despite their role in the rise ofhistory’s most murderous anti-Slavic movement, the ideas of the “Conservative Revolution”recently have made a surprising comeback among Russian intellectuals, not least becauseof Dugin’s continuous propagation of their ideas in hundreds of articles and dozens of

8Boris Rezhabek, “Merzlaia zemlia evraziitsa Dugina,” Lebed', no. 248 (2001) (also available atwww.lebed.com/2001/art2744.htm [last accessed April 4, 2009]).

9Iulius Evola, Iazycheskii imperializm, trans. Aleksandr Dugin (Moscow, 1994).10On Evola’s importance for the development of Dugin’s doctrine see the discussion by A. James Gregor and

Andreas Umland in Fascism Past and Present, West and East: An International Debate on Concepts andCases in the Comparative Study of the Extreme Right, ed. Roger Griffin et al. (Stuttgart/Hannover, 2006),459–99. See also A. James Gregor, “Review of: Shenfield. Russian Fascism,” Slavic Review 60 (Winter 2001):868–69; idem, “The Problem,” in Fascism, Vol. 1, The Nature of Fascism, ed. Roger Griffin and MatthewFeldman (London, 2004), 339–40.

11On Evola’s fascism see Thomas Sheehan, “Myth and Violence: The Fascism of Julius Evola and Alain deBenoist,” Social Research 48:1 (1981): 45–73; Richard Drake, “Julius Evola and the Ideological Origins of theRadical Right in Contemporary Italy,” in Political Violence and Terror: Motifs and Motivations, ed. PeterMerkl (Berkeley, 1986), 61–89; idem, The Revolutionary Mystique and Terrorism in Contemporary Italy(Bloomington, 1989), 114–34; Roger Griffin, “Between Metapolitics and Apoliteia: The Nouvelle Droite’sStrategy for Conserving the Fascist Vision in the ‘Interregnum,’” Modern and Contemporary France 8:1 (2000):35–53; and idem, “Grey Cats, Blue Cows, and Wide Awake Groundhogs: Notes towards the Development of a‘Deliberative Ethos’ in Fascist Studies,” in Fascism Past and Present, West and East, 411–58.

12Leonid Liuks [Luks], “‘Tretii put',’ ili nazad v Tretii Reikh?” Voprosy filosofii, 2000, no. 5:33–44; idem,Tretii Rim? Tretii Reikh? Tretii put'? Istoricheskie ocherki o Rossii, Germanii i Zapade (Moscow, 2002);idem, “Zum ‘geopolitischen’ Programm Aleksandr Dugins und der Zeitschrift Ëlementy – eine manichäischeVersuchung,” Forum für osteuropäische Ideen- und Zeitgeschichte 6:1 (2002): 43–58; idem, “Eurasien ausneototalitärer Sicht – Zur Renaissance einer Ideologie im heutigen Rußland,” Totalitarismus und Demokratie1:1 (2004): 63–76; idem, “A ‘Third Way’ – or Back to the Third Reich?” Russian Politics and Law 47:1(2009): 7–23. See also Andreas Umland, “‘Konservativnaia revoliutsiia’: Imia sobstvennoe ili rodovoe poniatie?”Voprosy filosofii, 2006, no. 2:116–26 (available at www1.ku-eichstaett.de/ZIMOS/forum/docs/3Umland06.pdf;reprinted in Russkii natsionalizm v politicheskom prostranstve [Issledovaniia po natsionalizmu v Rossii], ed.Marlène Laruelle [Moscow, 2007], 54–74).


books.13 Finally, heavy traces of the influence of the so-called European New Right (ENR)—for example, Alain de Benoist, Robert Steuckers, Jean Thiriart, Troy Southgate, amongothers—are evident in “neo-Eurasianism.”14 Dugin personally met several ENR thinkersin Moscow, Paris, Antwerp, and London.15 The ENR too is indebted to the legacies ofEvola and some “conservative revolutionary” authors—perhaps, most of all to CarlSchmitt—and ENR authors occasionally refer favorably to Guénon’s works.

Dugin’s case raises a question also applicable to the assessment of Evola’s and theENR’s interpretation of Integral Traditionalism: are Evola’s theories and the ENR’s ideologylegitimate successors of Guénon’s teaching? The answer, we believe, is that they are not,or that they are at best skewed reinterpretations of Integral Traditionalism. The universalistcore of the deist worldview of classical Traditionalism—to some extent reminiscent ofGotthold Ephraim Lessing’s Ringparabel in the play Nathan the Wise—is lost in the outlooksof Evola, the ENR, and the disciples of “neo-Eurasianism.” Dugin plainly rejects the“transcendent unity of religions”—a central concept of Integral Traditionalism.16

Within the framework of ENR reinterpretations, Guénon’s and his initial followers’ideas appear as rhetorical devices for creating an insurmountable opposition between anopen, pluralistic, and democratic model of society on the one hand, and a closed, monistic,and hierarchic model on the other. To be sure, this juxtaposition by itself is fundamental toIntegral Traditionalist postulates as well. But for the ENR, including Dugin, Traditionalismdoes not serve as a source of genuine intellectual inspiration but, instead, as a wellspring oforiginal-sounding notions and ideas, the primary value of which lies in their usefulness forconceptually disconnecting postwar right-wing extremism from the discredited terminologyand outlook of German Nazism.

Initially, Alain de Benoist and other ENR thinkers, including Dugin, held more or lessbiologically informed prejudices of the “old right’s” racism.17 As it evolved, however, theENR substituted biologistic fundamentalism with radical cultural particularism with regardto both ethnic groups and world civilizations. This new form of ascription perverts theliberal ideal of the right to be different. While its consequences are less aggressive thanordinary biological racism, the ENR’s cultural differentialism leads to comparable political

13Valerii Senderov, “Krizis sovremennogo konservatizma,” Novyi mir, 2007, no. 1:117–51; idem,“Konservativnaia revoliutsiia v poslesovetskom izvode: Kratkii ocherk osnovnykh idei,” Voprosy filosofii,2007, no. 10:3–18.

14See Anton Shekhovtsov, “Aleksandr Dugin’s Neo-Eurasianism: The New Right à la Russe,” ReligionCompass: Political Religions (forthcoming).

15On the New Right see Tamir Bar-On, Where Have All the Fascists Gone? (Aldershot, 2007); Griffin,“Between Metapolitics and Apoliteia”; idem, “Plus ça change! The Fascist Pedigree of the Nouvelle Droite,” inThe Development of the Radical Right in France, 1890–1995, ed. Edward Arnold (London, 2000), 217–52;Alberto Spektorowski, “The New Right: Ethno-regionalism, Ethno-pluralism and the Emergence of a Neo-fascist ‘Third Way,’” Journal of Political Ideologies 8:1 (2003): 111–30; and Sheehan, “Myth and Violence.”

16Aleksandr Dugin, Filosofiia traditsionalizma (Moscow, 2002), 42–43, 100–101. On the importance ofthe “transcendent unity of religions” for Integral Traditionalism see, inter alia, Frithjof Schuon, De l’unitétranscendante des religions (Paris, 1948); and Oldmeadow, “The Transcendent Unity of Religions,” in hisTraditionalism.

17Griffin, “Plus ça Change! The Fascist Pedigree of the Nouvelle Droite;” Aleksandr Dugin, Giperboreiskaiateoriia (1990; reprint ed. Moscow, 1993); Andreas Umland, “Pathological Tendencies in Russian ‘Neo-Eurasianism’: The Significance of the Rise of Aleksandr Dugin for the Interpretation of Public Life inContemporary Russia,” Russian Politics and Law 47:1 (2009): 76–89.


programs of ethnic screening, forced deportation, global de-integration, and internationalisolation. It asserts that different cultural entities and their representatives are deeplyincompatible, and it elevates civilizational values or traditions—rather than geneticor phenotypic traits—to characteristics that set human beings fundamentally apart fromeach other.

In reaction to the instrumentalization of Guénon’s ideas, students of IntegralTraditionalism, as well as Traditionalists themselves, have explicitly or implicitly cast doubton whether Evola’s ideas can be included in the Traditionalist school of thought. Forexample, Harry Oldmeadow, an expert on Perennial Philosophy, does not mention Evola inhis influential Traditionalism.18 He does consider Evola’s works in Journeys East, whichexplores Western thinkers who have addressed Eastern religious and philosophical themes.But he does so in the chapter “Orientalism, Racial Theory and the Allure of Fascism,”where Evola is mentioned as a “‘disciple’ of René Guénon” using ironic quotation marks.19

Another specialist on Integral Traditionalism, William W. Quinn, mentions Evola in a passageof The Only Tradition devoted to thinkers associated with the Traditionalist school. Butthe thinkers he focuses on at this point are those “who were to varying degrees affected bythe thought of Guénon and Coomaraswamy, but who ... were not part of the central core ofthe Traditional school per se.”20

To be sure, Evola’s books do reflect the ideas of Guénon to a considerable degree.But Evola’s “anti-Modernism”—if that term is at all appropriate for Italy’s famous Dadaist—which some authors tend to trace directly to Guénon, also has other, non-Traditionalistsources, including the works of Friedrich Nietzsche and Oswald Spengler. (Evola translatedthe latter’s The Decline of the West into Italian.21) As a result, it seems doubtful whether aconsistent negation of the modern world—a central idea of Integral Traditionalism—canbe easily ascribed to the Italian avant-garde artist.22

Renaud Fabbri, the editor of the Traditionalist journal Vincit Omnia Veritas, has arguedthat Evola “was influenced by racist theories and the philosophy of Nietzsche, long beforereading Guénon,” and because of this “deviated from the core of Perennialist teaching onfar too many points to be considered as part of Guénon’s legacy.”23 Evola himself admittedthat, “in the field of ideas,” his synthesis of “transcendent” and Kshatriya principles “becamethe foundation of defining ... the concept of ‘traditionalism,’ in opposition to its moreintellectualist and Eastern-centric interpretation that characterized the movement led byRené Guénon.”24

18Oldmeadow, Traditionalism.19Harry Oldmeadow, Journeys East: 20th Century Western Encounters with Eastern Religious Traditions

(Bloomington, 2004), 368.20Quinn, The Only Tradition, 39.21Göran Dahl, Radical Conservatism and the Future of Politics (London, 1999), 132; Nicholas Goodrick-

Clarke, Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism, and the Politics of Identity (New York, 2002), 55.22Roger Griffin, Modernism and Fascism: The Sense of Beginning under Mussolini and Hitler (London,

2007), 39–41.23Renaud Fabbri, “Introduction to the Perennialist School,” www.religioperennis.org/documents/Fabbri/

Perennialism.pdf).24Julius Evola, Il Cammino del Cinabro (Milan, 1972), 13 (emphasis added).


What, then, are the differences between Evola’s doctrine and Integral Traditionalism?A crucial discrepancy concerns the issue of “initiation” as a spiritual rite of passage. ForGuénon, “sacerdotal initiation” (to “greater mysteries”) is superior to “royal initiation” (to“lesser mysteries”).25 Evola inverted this hierarchy and even suggested the possibility ofself- or auto-initiation. As Mircea A. Tamas, a Canadian expert on Integral Traditionalismnotes, Evola “was a Westerner and could not accept the truth about the Occident and itslack of initiatory ways. For this reason he had to reject Guénon’s teachings and consider asort of ‘auto-initiation’ (which would connect the neophyte directly to the Most High, withoutthe need of a regular initiation or an initiatory organization).”26 This dissimilarity is critical:For Guénon, priority of the “royal” initiation was the result of a rebellion of the Kshatriyaswho “strove to reverse the normal relationships and who, in certain cases, were able to setup a sort of irregular and incomplete tradition.”27

Importantly, Dugin took Evola’s side when describing, in his Filosofiia traditsionalizma,the differences between Guénon’s and Evola’s approaches to initiation. Like the latter, the“neo-Eurasianist” Dugin subordinated reflection and knowledge (the “sacerdotal,”Brahmanic principle) to action (the “royal,” Kshatriya principle).28 “Contemplation versusaction” was one of the most fundamental antitheses for Guénon, who consideredcontemplation or cognition an expression of the “traditional spirit,” and action itself an“anti-traditional” one.29 Evola and Dugin, in contrast, subordinated the Eastern idea ofspiritual meditation to activism—a concept that, for Guénon, was synonymous with theanti-traditional West.

In its attitude to objective reality, this activism is related less to classical IntegralTraditionalism than to so-called “actual idealism”—an idea developed by Giovanni Gentile,a founding father and major theorist of Italian Fascism.30 Evola’s sympathies for Fascismand his temporary collaboration with Benito Mussolini helped to estrange him from Guénon,who reviled any political product of the hated modern world, including Fascism.31 XavierAccart, a historian of French thought and student of comparative literature, pointed out thatthe French metaphysician himself warned against a confusion of his ideas with Evola’s, andhad condemned Europe’s fascist regimes well before World War II.32

25See “Sacerdotal and Royal Initiation,” in René Guénon, Perspectives on Initiation (Hillsdale, 2004).26Mircea A. Tamas, The Wrath of Gods: Esoteric and Occult in the Modern World (Toronto, 2004), 150.27Guénon, Perspectives on Initiation, 251.28Dugin, Filosofiia traditsionalizma, 403–58.29René Guénon, The Crisis of the Modern World (Hillsdale, 2004), 33–36.30On Giovanni Gentile’s actual idealism see Henry S. Harris, The Social Philosophy of Giovanni Gentile

(Urbana, 1960); and Claudio Fogu, “Actualism and the Fascist Historic Imaginary,” History and Theory 42:2(2003): 196–221. On Gentile as a Fascist philosopher see A. James Gregor, Giovanni Gentile: Philosopher ofFascism (New Brunswick, 2001); and M. E. Moss, Mussolini’s Fascist Philosopher: Giovanni GentileReconsidered (New York, 2004).

31Sergei Kliuchnikov, “Simvolika i nasledie ‘kairskogo otshel'nika,’” in Rene Genon, Simvoly sviashchennoinauki (Moscow, 2004), 15. Iurii Stefanov also notes that one of the reasons of the discord between Guénon andEvola was the former’s apology for the East, while the latter “called upon the defense of the ‘Mediterraneantradition’ against the threat from the East” (Stefanov, “Rene Genon,” 36). See also Rustem Vakhitov, “IuliusEvola: Liudi i ruiny,” Volshebnaia gora 9 (2006) (available at www.phg.ru/?page=17&article=12). See alsoGuénon’s letters to Guido De Giorgio, in which he criticizes Evola, at http://nationalism.org/vvv/guenon-de-giorgio.htm, trans. Viktoriia Vaniushkina.

32Accart, Guénon, ou, Le renversement des clartés.


The political inactivity and indifference that the founders of the Traditionalist school,Guénon and Coomaraswamy, demanded and practiced became a bon ton for their followers,Frithjof Schuon, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Titus Burckhardt, Martin Lings, Lord Northbourne,and others. But not for Dugin. Despite his repeated claims that he is a Traditionalist, as anotable publicist and social activist he has from the very beginning departed not only fromthe political passivity of Traditionalism’s founders but also from a significant part of theirliterary and philosophical heritage.

Some critics wrongly spoke of Guénon’s “sympathies” for the French ultranationalistorganization Action Française. As his publisher and biographer Paul Chacornac clarified,Guénon did sympathize to “some degree” with certain leaders of the organization, particularlyLéon Daudet, who “of all the leaders of Action Française was the most capable ofunderstanding Guénon, and of accepting, at least partially, his point of view.” Guénon,however, sympathized less with the organization as such, than with some of its members.According to Chacornac, “there must have been far less sympathy between Guénon and[Action Française leader] Charles Maurras,” due to their difference regarding the nature of“traditional society.” Guénon’s 1929 book Spiritual Authority and Temporal Power,specifically devoted to the hierarchical subordination of action to knowledge, was partly aresponse to the conflict between Action Française and Pope Pius XI. Guénon took sideswith the latter, who had condemned Action Française as “a danger to faith and morals aswell as to the Catholic education of youth.”33 Apparently, the nationalism of Action Françaisewas the main reason for Guénon’s aversion to Maurras. According to the FrenchTraditionalist, “all nationalism [is] essentially opposed to the traditional outlook.”34

Coomaraswamy’s involvement in politics, in turn, was confined to temporary participationin the Indian independence movement swadeshi, as well as his active protest against, and“his resistance to, the British conscription established to provide troops for the battlefieldsof World War I.” His status as a conscientious objector eventually prompted his emigrationto the United States in 1917.35

Neither Evola’s worldview nor the doctrines of the ENR and Dugin constitute theunequivocal rejection of Modernity that Integral Traditionalism explicitly demands.Although Dugin radically repudiates some manifestations of Western Modernity, heeventually (resorting to Huntingtonian terminology) promotes “modernization withoutWesternization.”36 This formula indicates that the term “anti-modernism,” if applied to the“neo-Eurasianists” and ENR, in general, is misleading. Roger Griffin argues that theobjective of all varieties of fascism—including the ideas of Evola, the ENR, and Dugin—is not anti-modern. Rather, fascist ideology constitutes an urge toward an “alternativemodernity” and the creation of a “new fascist man.”37

33Chacornac, The Simple Life of René Guénon, 70–71.34Guénon, The Crisis of the Modern World, 98.35Quinn, The Only Tradition, 10.36Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York, 1996);

Aleksandr Dugin, “Modernizatsiia bez vesternizatsii,” Zavtra, no. 37 (250) (1997): 6.37Roger Griffin, “The Sacred Synthesis: The Ideological Cohesion of Fascist Cultural Politics,” Modern

Italy 31:1 (1998): 5–23; idem, Modernism and Fascism.


DUGIN AS AN ANTI-TRADITIONALIST

When Dugin in 1997 proposed “modernization without Westernization,” he eventuallycollided openly with Guénon’s teaching. This disagreement not only exists on an abstract,theoretical level; it expresses itself over practical matters as well, as we can see in Dugin’sand Guénon’s contradictory assessment of concrete social affairs. For instance, “neo-Eurasianists” view favorably the training that students from Eastern countries receive atWestern universities. Dugin believes that such students, when going back to their homecountries, “return to their roots and take advantage of the technological models [that theystudied, in the West] for the sake of their own civilizations.”38 Guénon, in contrast, arguedthat such students were “Eastern Westerners” and “avowed agents ... of the most baneful ofall forms of Western propaganda.” Their aim, he wrote, was “to exhibit to the West theirmodernized East, which has been made to conform to the theories that have been instilledin them in Europe and America.”39

Another of Dugin’s conceptual conflicts with Guénon is highlighted by certain essays,in which the leader of “neo-Eurasianism” positively assesses the legacy of the British occultwriter and Satanist Aleister Crowley, particularly in “Uchenie Zveria” and “Chelovek ssokolinym kliuvom.” Dugin tries to legitimize placing Crowley within the larger context ofTraditionalism by referring to the link between Crowley and Evola, and specifically to thefact that they had a common friend—the Italian Freemason Arturo Reghini.40 Guénon, bycontrast, had called Crowley a “black magician” and “charlatan,” and argued that many ofthe organizations founded by Crowley were “counter-initiatory”—that is, anti-Traditionalist.41 Just by itself, Guénon’s negative attitude toward Crowley makes it difficultto consider the latter an Integral Traditionalist. As one Russian observer commented on

38“Tekhnicheskii progress kak faktor politiki: Aleksandr Dugin v programme ‘Ishchem vykhod’ na radio-stantsii ‘Ekho Moskvy,’” www.evrazia.org/modules.php?name= News&file=article&sid=2608.

39Guénon, The Crisis of the Modern World, 102.40Aleksandr Dugin, “Uchenie Zveria,” Milyi Angel, 1996, no. 3 (available at http://angel.org.ru/3/

crowley.html); idem, “Chelovek s sokolinym kliuvom,” in Aleksandr Dugin, Tampliery proletariata: Natsional-bol'shevizm i initsiatsiia (Moscow, 1997), 169–76 (available at www.arcto.ru/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=91). One may add that the relationship between Evola and Crowley was not as unambiguous asDugin implied. See Hans Thomas Hakl, “Einige zusätzliche Bemerkungen zum Fragenkomplex Julius Evolaund Aleister Crowley,” in Marco Pasi, Aleister Crowley und die Versuchung der Politik (Graz, 2006), 277–96.Reghini and Evola became acquainted after World War I and established the esoteric Gruppo di Ur. Accordingto Goodrick-Clarke, Reghini exerted a profound influence on the development of Evola’s worldview (BlackSun, 55–56). The idea of the “pagan imperialism” originally belonged to Reghini, who published the essay“Imperialismo pagano” in the journal Salamandra in 1914. Evola published his book of the same namefourteen years later and borrowed heavily from Reghini’s essay, in other ways too. The rupture between thetwo thinkers was embarrassing: In 1929, one year after the publication of his Imperialismo pagano, Evolaaccused his former “friend” of being a member of a Masonic lodge (Mussolini had banned freemasonry in Italyin 1925), and tried to sue him on that ground. Concerning the relationship between Crowley and Reghini, thelatter was an Italian representative of the Ordo Templi Orientis, a Masonic organization headed by Crowleyfrom 1922 until 1947. See Marco Pasi, “The Neverendingly Told Story: Recent Biographies of Aleister Crowley,”Aries 3:2 (2003): 243.

41Réne Guénon, Studies in Freemasonry and the Compagnonnage (Hillsdale, 2004), 197, 245.


this and related revisions by Dugin, “in terms of Guénonism, any sympathy with counter-initiation would mean the same as Christians’ sympathy with Satanism.”42

Dugin’s appreciation for Crowley stems from the latter’s nonconformism, as well asfrom what Dugin conceives to have been the British Satanist’s political position. Duginwrote that Crowley supported all “‘subversive’ trends in politics—Communism, Nazism,anarchism and extreme liberation nationalism (especially the Irish one).”43 Referring toChristian Bouchet, leader of the French radical right-wing organization Nouvelle Résistance,Dugin calls Crowley a “Conservative Revolutionary.”44 In fact, Crowley’s true politicalviews remain unclear. Insofar as his support for Irish nationalism is concerned, Crowley’sseparatist guise actually helped him to win the trust of German secret service agents duringWorld War I. For most of his life Crowley was an agent for MI-6, the British counter-intelligence service that, in Dugin’s terms, constitutes an “Atlanticist”—and thus anti-Russian—organization.45

Dugin’s attempt to present Crowley, as well as other thinkers with little relation toIntegral Traditionalism, as exponents of Perennial Philosophy, along with his disregard ofsuch acknowledged Traditionalists as Schuon or Nasr, suggests that the leader of “neo-Eurasianism” is interested in only those authors and thinkers whose legacy can be utilizedfor the formulation of his own doctrine. What attracts Dugin is not the authenticity of anauthor’s Traditionalist worldview, but rather his cultural nonconformism, political radicalism,or actual idealism.

A further illustration of Dugin’s peculiar use of the term “Traditionalism” is hiscontradictory, if not paradoxical appraisal of the Romanian-born U.S. historian of religion,Mircea Eliade.46 In an essay interpreting Eliade’s academic works through the lenses of thescholar’s participation in the interwar Legion of Archangel Michael—a Romanian fascistorganization better known as the Iron Guard—Dugin called the famous scholar a “prominenttraditionalist.”47 But in a different text that did not mention Eliade’s fascist past, Dugin

42Sergei Stroev, “Opyt ‘Arktogei’: Sval'nyi grekh bludomysliia,” Otkrytaia elektronnaia gazeta Forum.msk.ru,February 5, 2006, http://forum.msk.ru/material/politic/7368.html.

43Dugin, “Uchenie Zveria.”44Ibid. On the concept of “Conservative Revolution” see Umland, “‘Konservativnaia revoliutsiia.’”45Richard B. Spence, “Secret Agent 666: Aleister Crowley and British Intelligence in America, 1914–1918,”

International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 13:3 (2000): 359–71; idem, Secret Agent 666:Aleister Crowley, British Intelligence and the Occult (Los Angeles, 2008).

46Mircea Eliade, who, during the interwar period lived mostly in Romania, was one of several scholars whotried to provide the ideology of the Legion of Archangel Michael with a Christian-mysticist legitimacy. SeeZigu Ornea, The Romanian Extreme Right: The Nineteen Thirties (Boulder, 1999); Adriana Berger, “MirceaEliade: Romanian Fascism and the History of Religions in the United States,” in Tainted Greatness: Antisemitismand Cultural Heroes, ed. Nancy Harrowitz (Philadelphia, 1994), 51–74; Steven M. Wasserstrom, Religionafter Religion: Gershom Scholem, Mircea Eliade, and Henry Corbin at Eranos (Princeton, 1999); ViacheslavLikhachev, “Revoliutsiia dukha. Khristianskii fashizm Mirchi Eliade,” Nezavisimaia gazeta: Religii, March3, 2004 (available at http://religion.ng.ru/history/2004-03-03/6_eliade.html); and Anton Shekhovtsov,“Kontseptsiia ‘novogo cheloveka’ Mirchi Eliade kak forma politicheskoi oppozitsii,” Vestnik SevGTU, no. 71(2006): 3–9.

47Aleksandr Dugin, “Mircha Eliade – vechnoe vozvrashchenie,” http://arcto.ru/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1103.


argued that the scholar belonged among those “authors who can be hardly termed‘traditionalists’ in the Guénonian sense.”48 In fact, the opposite argument would be logical:it is precisely Eliade’s link to Romanian fascism that undermines the validity of classifyinghis outlook as a permutation of Integral Traditionalism; categorizing him as such would bepossible only if we turned a blind eye to his flirtation with the Iron Guard.

There is no doubt that Dugin has contributed to the development of RussianTraditionalism. But he has done so less by thinking or writing than by being an industriouspublisher. As mentioned, Perennial Philosophy was a fairly unknown body of thought inRussia during the early 1990s, drawing attention from a limited readership attracted toforbidden philosophical conceptions. Iurii Stefanov first “popularized” IntegralTraditionalism among educated Russian readers, but the audience for his translations andown writings was small. It was Dugin who first engaged in large-scale dissemination ofTraditionalist ideas. The inaugural 1991 issue of his miscellany Milyi Angel, featuringthree of Guénon’s articles, had a circulation of twenty thousand. As Internet access startedspreading in Russia, Dugin began to post articles from Milyi Angel and Elementy to his websites, along interviews with representatives of European Traditionalist schools and othermaterial, all of which helped to propagate Integral Traditionalism.49 In 1991, Dugin’spublishing house Arktogeia issued one of Guénon’s key works, The Crisis of the ModernWorld.50 The high circulation of his journals and his extensive use of the Internet allowedDugin to contribute significantly to the mass dissemination of Traditionalist ideas in Russia.

While Dugin thus did make a significant contribution to Russian Traditionalism, theabove-indicated caveat should be borne in mind: most of the texts published in Elementyand Milyi Angel are ENR instrumentalizations of Traditionalism. Articles and essays byAlain de Benoist, Robert Steuckers, Claudio Mutti, Jean-François Thiriart, Ange Sampieru,Christian Bouchet, David Barney, and others do occasionally use Traditionalist terminology,yet their ideological constructs conflict with the basic principles of Perennial Philosophy.Thus, the results of Dugin’s publishing activities, in terms of propagating Traditionalism,are ambiguous too. The arbitrary mixture in Dugin’s journals and web sites of unanalyzedbut genuinely Traditionalist texts with non-, para-, pseudo- or anti-Traditionalist texts oftendoes more to obscure the nature of Integral Traditionalism, rather than reveal it. The resultingconceptual confusion has contributed to the terminological jumble surrounding usage ofthe term “Traditionalism” in Russia.

MARK SEDGWICK’S INTERPRETATIONOF TRADITIONALISM AND DUGINISM

Any assessment of the relationship between Traditionalism and Dugin’s ideas cannot ignorethe research of Mark Sedgwick, an influential specialist on Integral Traditionalism and

48Dugin, Filosofiia traditsionalizma, 30.49See, in particular, www.arctogaia.com, www.arcto.ru, rv.evrazia.org, nu.evrazia.org, angel.org.ru, and

www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/6824/.50Rene Genon [Réne Guénon], Krizis sovremennogo mira (Moscow, 1991). This book was the first and last

of Guénon’s works published by Arktogeia. According to Artur Medvedev, the editor of the Russian Traditionalistjournal Volshebnaia gora, Dugin, when asked about the prospects of publishing other Guénon books, replied:


author of the seminal monograph Against the Modern World: Traditionalism and the SecretIntellectual History of the Twentieth History (2004).51 In a chapter dedicated to “neo-Eurasianism,” Sedgwick attempts to demonstrate the Traditionalist nature of Dugin’s doctrineand to interpret him as a “political Traditionalist.” Despite its impressive breadth, superiorstyle, and factual richness, Sedgwick’s fascinating book has received restrained or negativereviews in a number of journals specializing in Traditionalism and esotericism, not least bymany Traditionalists themselves who may feel threatened by Sedgwick’s revelations.52

Reviewers have accused Sedgwick of conceptual errors and unconfirmed assumptions.The most fundamental attack on Sedgwick’s book—expressed particularly by criticssympathetic to Guénon’s ideas—concerns the author’s allegedly insufficient characterizationand unclear delineation of the nature of Integral Traditionalism. Even some of the favorablereviews have maintained that there is “relatively little space” in the book “devoted to thesignal ideas or broad doctrines held by various schools of Traditionalism,” and that “readersseeking a discussion of Traditionalist thought” would be “disappointed.”53

Michael Fitzgerald, who apparently is himself a Traditionalist, accused Sedgwick ofignoring existing scholarship that contradicts his conclusions and relying instead oninformants, “many of whom openly acknowledge their personal animosity toward one oranother Perennialist writer.”54 According to this critique, Sedgwick not only failed to clearlydefine the subject of his research but also introduced the oxymoronic term “politicalTraditionalism.” He also used the term “Traditionalist” to characterize a number ofworldviews, philosophical schools, and even political ideologies, though only some of themcan be indisputably considered full-fledged varieties of Integral Traditionalism. For example,while Sedgwick’s list of “the seven most important Traditionalists” features suchacknowledged representatives of Traditionalism as Coomaraswamy, Guénon, FrithjofSchuon, and Seyyed Hossein Nasr, it also includes Julius Evola, Mircea Eliade, andAleksandr Dugin.55 Fitzgerald notes that, in the case of Evola, Sedgwick himselfacknowledged that “Evola made the most dramatic modifications to a GuénonianTraditionalism ... that was essentially apolitical” and that “Evola’s analysis of modernity isrecognizably a variation on the established Traditionalist philosophy.”56 Xavier Accart

“We will not publish Guénon—he is a poor seller. My books are selling better.” See www.phg.ru/phorum/viewtopic.php?p= 1555&sid=083b0b878f6220322a40aa3f615243f3#1555.

51Mark Sedgwick, Against the Modern World: Traditionalism and the Secret Intellectual History of theTwentieth Century (New York, 2004); idem, “Alexander Dugin’s Apocalyptic Traditionalism.” Paper presentedat the American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, Washington, DC, November 18–21, 2006.

52See, for example, Michael Fitzgerald, “Review of Against the Modern World: Traditionalism and theSecret Intellectual History of the Twentieth Century by Mark Sedgwick,” Vincit Omnia Veritas 1:2 (2005):90–104 (available at www.religioperennis.org/documents/Fitzgerald/Sedgwick.pdf); and Xavier Accart, “Reviewof Against the Modern World: Traditionalism and the Secret Intellectual History of the Twentieth Century byMark Sedgwick,” Aries 6:1 (2006): 98–105.

53Arthur Versluis, “Review of Against the Modern World: Traditionalism and the Secret Intellectual Historyof the Twentieth Century by Mark Sedgwick,” Esoterica, 2006, no. 8:185; Colin Beech, “Review of Againstthe Modern World: Traditionalism and the Secret Intellectual History of the Twentieth Century by MarkSedgwick,” Journal of World History 17:4 (2006): 237.

54Fitzgerald, “Review of Against the Modern World,” 91, 102.55Sedgwick, Against the Modern World, xiii.56Fitzgerald, “Review of Against the Modern World,” 98.


also disputes the notion of Dugin as a Traditionalist, basing his critique, he claims, onestablished definitions of Traditionalism.57

Notwithstanding such criticisms, Sedgwick’s book was the first extensive scholarlyattempt to analyze Duginism through the lens of Integral Traditionalism, and this explainswhy his conclusions have been reproduced in subsequent scholarly studies of Dugin and“neo-Eurasianism.”58 Moreover, Sedgwick’s book is currently being translated and preparedfor publication in Russia by Moscow’s renowned publishing house Novoe LiteraturnoeObozrenie. For these reasons, we consider here Sedgwick’s work and its significance forthe study of post-Soviet “neo-Eurasianism” in some detail. To be sure, some of the criticismlevelled at Sedgwick, such as those by the Traditionalists mentioned above, must beapproached with caution, for they sometimes seem to be driven by nonacademic motives.Yet some of the issues raised even by these, possibly biased, reviewers are worth furtherdiscussion. This concerns above all Sedgwick’s treatment of Dugin.

Sedgwick notes that “neo-Eurasianism” has four main sources, and that only one ofthem is the “Traditionalism that Dugin used to add a moral and existential element toMackinder and Haushofer.”59 This combination of “Traditionalist” and geopolitical ideasis one of “the modifications Dugin made to the Traditionalist philosophy.”60 These“modifications” were so profound, however, that Sedgwick himself acknowledged that“neo-Eurasianism is not specifically or overtly Traditionalist.”61 Notwithstanding thisadmission, he still considers Dugin’s “neo-Eurasianism” to be “a form of Traditionalism.”62

A similarly ambivalent approach toward identifying the nature of “neo-Eurasianism”can be found in Sedgwick’s assessment of the role of Perennial Philosophy in classifyingDugin’s doctrine. Having distinguished three main elements of the Russian’s doctrine—“apocalypticism, critique of liberal democracy, and geopolitical analysis”—Sedgwick assertsthat “the first two of these elements are clearly of Traditionalist origin.”63 But he then goeson to add that, although “Dugin’s apocalypticism ... has Traditionalist roots,” it cannot be“explained by Traditionalism alone, since most Traditionalists place much less emphasison the imminence of the apocalypse.”64 Sedgwick admits that many of Dugin’s books“cannot be explained in Traditionalist terms.”65

Sedgwick links Integral Traditionalism not only to Dugin’s “neo-Eurasianism” butalso to classical Eurasianism of the 1920s, which he identifies with “Geopolitics.”66 Thelink between the two systems of thought, in Sedgwick’s mind, is that “both Guénon and the

57Accart, “Review of Against the Modern World,” 102.58For example, Marlène Laruelle has reproduced some of Sedgwick’s conclusions with regard to “Dugin’s

Traditionalism” in her otherwise perceptive paper “Aleksandr Dugin: A Russian Version of the European RadicalRight?” 9–12. See also Adrian Ivakhiv, “Nature and Ethnicity in East European Paganism: An EnvironmentalEthic of the Religious Right?” The Pomegranate 7:2 (2005): 194–225.

59Sedgwick, “Alexander Dugin’s Apocalyptic Traditionalism,” 17.60Sedgwick, Against the Modern World, 225–26.61Ibid., 230.62Sedgwick, “Alexander Dugin’s Apocalyptic Traditionalism,” 28. Elsewhere, Sedgwick calls Dugin’s Neo-

Eurasianism “an unusual variety of Traditionalism” (Against the Modern World, 221).63Sedgwick, “Alexander Dugin’s Apocalyptic Traditionalism,” 12.64Ibid., 13–14.65Ibid., 10.66Sedgwick, Against the Modern World, 226.


Eurasianists were formulating their ideas in the same period, and so were subject to someof the same general influences.”67 We and others, including Ilya Vinkovetsky and StefanWiederkehr, have argued that Dugin primarily used the terminology, rather than ideology,of the Russian émigré movement of the 1920s and 1930s, while formulating his new versionof “Eurasianism.” That is why, in this and other analyses of Dugin’s ideology, we havebeen placing quotation marks around the term “neo-Eurasianism.” Instead of seeking anauthentic source for his constructs, the Russian neo-fascist may have embraced classicalEurasianism for more prosaic purposes. Because it was created by some highly educatedand regarded Russian émigrés, “Eurasianism” has allowed Dugin to disguise his moreimportant non-Russian—in particular, Western European—ideological roots: the“Conservative Revolution,” the ENR, Evola, and so on.68 Therefore, possible links betweenIntegral Traditionalism and classical Eurasianism—however doubtful they might be—seemof only limited relevance to the discussion of the significance of Traditionalism to“neo-Eurasianism.”

The same goes for a passage in a paper devoted to Dugin that Sedgwick presentedin 2006. According to Sedgwick, Dugin’s activities can be characterized as Traditionalistbecause “his spiritual practice may be explained in terms of Guénon, and his politicalactivity may be explained in terms of Evola, or perhaps in terms of Nietzsche andexistentialism.”69 However, Integral Traditionalism has little in common with Nietzsche orexistentialism. There is little reason to consider Dugin, on this basis, an adherent ofPhilosophia Perennis.

Equally ambivalent are Sedgwick’s observations on the allegedly Traditionalistcharacter of Dugin’s religious activities and spiritual life. He notes that Dugin belongs tothe Edinoverie section of the Old Believers—a Church that recognizes the authority of theMoscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church. In Sedgwick’s words, “this detailmakes no sense in Guénonian or Traditionalist terms, but makes a lot of sense in Russianterms, since it allows Dugin to have excellent relations with the mainstream OrthodoxChurch.”70 Such a strategy gives Dugin the opportunity to take part in political life of theRussian Federation—an activity that would have been more difficult, if not impossible, hadDugin followed Guénon’s example and become a Muslim.71 To be sure, Sedgwick recognizesthat “Dugin’s personal religious practice ... cannot be explained purely in religious terms.”72

67Sedgwick, “Alexander Dugin’s Apocalyptic Traditionalism,” 16.68Ilya Vinkovetsky, “Eurasianism in Its Time: A Bibliography,” in Exodus to the East: Forebodings and

Events. An Affirmation of the Eurasians, ed. Ilya Vinkovetsky and Charles Schlacks (Idyllwild, 1996), 143–74; Stefan Wiederkehr, “‘Kontinent Evrasija’ – Klassischer Eurasismus und Geopolitik in der Lesart AlexanderDugins,” in Auf der Suche nach Eurasien: Politik, Religion und Alltagskultur zwischen Russland und Europa,ed. Markus Kaiser (Bielefeld, 2004), 25–138; Andreas Umland, “Kulturhegemoniale Strategien der russischenextremen Rechten”; idem, “Postsowjetische Gegeneliten und ihr wachsender Einfluss auf Jugendkultur undIntellektuellendiskurs in Russland: Der Fall Aleksandr Dugin (1990–2004),” in Generationen in den Umbrüchenpostkommunistischer Gesellschaften: Erfahrungstransfers und Differenzen vor dem Generationenwechsel inRussland und Ostdeutschland, ed. Tanja Bürgel (Jena, 2006), 21–46 (available at www.sfb580.uni-jena.de/typo3/uploads/tx_publicationlist/Heft20.pdf).

69Sedgwick, “Alexander Dugin’s Apocalyptic Traditionalism,” 16.70Ibid., 10.71Ibid., 9–10.72Ibid., 9.


Still, Sedgwick maintains that Dugin’s activities can be explained in Traditionalist terms,as his “spiritual practice may be explained in terms of Guénon.”73 However, it is doubtfulthat Guénon would have regarded adherence to a society’s dominant religious principles asan expression of Traditionalism. Adapting one’s spiritual practice to reigning politicalcorrectness, in the putative Traditionalist’s home country, is inimical to the spirit of IntegralTraditionalism.

We are going into such detail when criticizing Sedgwick’s otherwise excellent studynot simply because its Russian translation may acquire significance as a seminal treatmentof “neo-Eurasianism” in Russia. It could have a political impact as well, providing Duginwith a pseudo-conservative veil that obscures the revolutionary-ultranationalist—that is,fascist—agenda underlying his publishing activities. In recent years Dugin has been tryingto establish himself as a mainstream pundit by presenting his ideology as “conservative.”74

An authoritative Western classification as a “Traditionalist” could prove useful for him inthis endeavor.

Dugin’s form of “Traditionalism”—if one chooses to use this term—has little relation tothe philosophical school created by Guénon and Coomaraswamy. As Versluis puts it, Guénonwould have not “recognize[d] himself at all in Dugin’s violent exhortations.”75 “Neo-Eurasianism” is the result of a syncretic combination—bordering on random compilation—of pseudo-archaic conceptions with modernist and postmodernist postulates.76 PerennialPhilosophy serves Dugin as an arsenal of unconventional terms and offbeat notions—freelyreaggregated in Dugin’s worldview—rather than as an organic precursor or ideationalfoundation of “neo-Eurasianism.”77

Why, then, this extensive treatment of Dugin’s clearly awkward historical and theoreticalmixtures? His articles and books could be of intellectual interest only to those Russianreaders who do not know foreign languages well enough to read, or do not care to getaccess to, the relevant European literature, or to those seeking ideological indulgence tofeed their anti-Western—particularly anti-American—ressentiment. But Dugin’s numerouspublications and frequent TV appearances have become part and parcel of the daily politicaland intellectual life of contemporary Russia. This article, then, seeks to apply a correctiveto the startling seriousness with which prominent politicians, scholars, journalists, andcultural figures treat Dugin’s inept narratives.

73Ibid., 12.74Andreas Umland, “Pravoradikal'nyi ideolog stanovitsia professorom vedushchego VUZa Rossii,” inoSMI.ru,

November 20, 2008, www.inosmi.ru/translation/245520.html (last accessed April 4, 2009).75Versluis, “Review of Against the Modern World,” 186.76One could add that challenges to the classical model of the development of advanced industrial states by

ecological, neospiritualist, communitarian, and other movements is characteristic of everyday political life ofcontemporary Western liberal democracies. These phenomena can be considered as being inherent to theproject of Modernity. See Griffin, Modernism and Fascism. From this perspective, the New Right’s radicalrepudiation of the Western development path is not that peculiar.

77Shekhovtsov considers in detail the issue of Dugin’s determined amalgamation of sociopolitical, cultural,and esoteric themes for constructing a syncretic palingenetic myth at the core of “neo-Eurasianism” (“ThePalingenetic Thrust of Russian Neo-Eurasianism”).


In view of his massive “presence” in Russia, Dugin’s specific interpretation ofTraditionalism could be declared seminal. Why not agree with the notion of, as Sedgwickputs it, “Dugin’s Traditionalism”? In the final analysis, “Traditionalism” is just a word.Why should we deny Russia’s major exponent of “neo-Eurasianism” and, perhaps, best-known professor of Moscow State University his “right” to that term? Such a semanticrevision would be permissible, if not for two issues, one etymological, the other pragmatic.78

First, it seems contradictory to use the word “tradition” in order to describe an ideologythat is aimed, according to Dugin himself, at modernization (although not at Westernization).Word combinations like “traditionalist modernization” or “modernizing traditionalism”should be rejected as classificatory terms for much the same reasons we earlier rejected thenotion of “conservative revolution” as a generic concept for scholarly analyses.79 Suchoxymorons can be utilized in academic communication as proper names for singularphenomena. But within generic concepts such combinations of antonyms serve only toundermine the semantic field that constitutes the foundation of our communication.

This observation leads to a second, pragmatic reason for refusing to identify Dugin asan Integral Traditionalist. Because, as we have tried to demonstrate, Duginism andGuénonism are not just somewhat distinct, but fundamentally different, applying the term“Traditionalism” to both worldviews would render the notion’s properties, extension, andreferents—its connotation and denotation—meaningless. If Evola or Dugin areTraditionalists to the same degree as Guénon or Coomaraswamy, then why not proclaimJerry Falwell, Benito Mussolini, or Plato to be “Traditionalists” as well?

By stretching the notion of Traditionalism to include Duginism, we deprive the termof its heuristic and communicative value. If, in turn (the above-mentioned discrepanciesnotwithstanding), we acknowledge Dugin’s, rather than Guénon’s or Coomaraswamy’s,primary “right” to the term “Traditionalism,” while admitting the relevance of the differencesbetween Duginism and Guénonism, we face another problem: How would we classify thosephilosophers who previously were considered Integral Traditionalists? If Guénon is not aTraditionalist, who or what is he? Apparently, we would have to coin a new term to designatehis teaching. Yet, introducing neologisms is a tricky business: their primary function is toconceptualize new phenomena, so proposing a neologism for a relatively old referent thatalready has been defined and popularized through a particular term would be difficult.Such innovation collides with established traditions (sic) of communication, and could beconsidered mere novitism.

The reason behind our refusal to consider Aleksandr Dugin a contemporaryrepresentative of Perennial Philosophy is not ideological or political. Rejecting Dugin’s

78The following argument is based on methodological considerations developed in modern comparativepolitical science. See, in particular, Giovanni Sartori, “Concept Misformation in Comparative Politics,”American Political Science Review 64 (1970): 1033–53; Giovanni Sartori, Fred Riggs, and Henry Teune, TheTower of Babel: On the Definition and Analysis of Concepts in the Social Sciences (Pittsburgh, 1975); GiovanniSartori, ed., Social Science Concepts: A Systematic Analysis (Beverly Hills, 1984); David Collier and James E.Mahon, Jr., “Conceptual ‘Stretching’ Revisited: Adapting Categories in Comparative Analysis,” AmericanPolitical Science Review 87 (1993): 845–55; John Gerring, Social Science Methodology: A Criterial Framework(Cambridge, England, 2001); and Gary Goertz, Social Science Concepts: A User’s Guide (Princeton, 2006).

79Umland, “‘Konservativnaia revoliutsiia.’”


classification as Traditionalist is simply less problematic than the alternatives—redefiningthe term, or stretching it far enough to encompass Duginism. Let Dugin and his followershave their pretensions to membership in the world-wide club of Traditionalists; or, if youwill, ridicule them for their efforts. But either way, in order to preserve the collective fruitsof scholarly research and maintain the efficacy of our communication, we need to classifythe ideology of Dugin and his followers with a different generic term. To be sure, determiningthe exact role that Guénon, Coomaraswamy, or other established Integral Traditionalistsplayed in Evola’s or Dugin’s intellectual evolution could still be of interest. But suchresearch would amount, as we have demonstrated, to an analysis of how they misused thethesaurus of “Traditionalism” and employed its themes to effect a fundamental revision ofthis philosophical school. Done properly, it would be anything but a treatment of Evolaand Dugin as legitimate contemporary exponents of Philosophia Perennis.

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Anton Shekhovtsov, Andreas Umland: Is Aleksandr Dugin a Traditionalist? "Neo-Eurasianism" and Perennial Philosophy