Die philosophisch-theologische Begründung des Eurasismus bei L. P. Karsavin

Julia B. Mehlich

pp. 73-117

in: Studies in East European Thought 52, 2000.

Abstract

The Evrazijstvo movement was an intellectual current which recognized the Revolution of 1917 as a fateful event and conceived itself as a "third way" for Russia between individualism and Soviet Communism. At the philosophical level Evrazijstvo was an extension of the Russian Idea. Basing himself on the principle of "All-Unity" Karsavin put his concept of the "symphonic personality" to work in critically referring to the philosophical concepts and methodological approaches then current in Europe. The Evrazijstvo idea was later to be reduced to the idea of the political power of ideocracy, an ideology of dictatorship and power, which raised sympathies for the "strong state" of the Soviet dictatorship, thus failing to provide a real alternative to the latter.