Geohistorical roots of Eurasian ideology

The Eurasian ideology, as a historical and cultural phenomenon connected to the Russian emigration of the 1920s and 1930s, has its own peculiarities, historical and geographical background and has a great scientific and historical significance. The purpose of the study is to identify the conditions of the Eurasian ideology that emerged as a reaction to the Russian revolution and the systemic crisis of the Russian state, historical, cultural and geographical prerequisites that determined its influence on the subsequent history of Russia. The author concludes that the intellectual elite of Russian emigration, the founders of Eurasian ideology, united, on the one hand, the condemnation of the influence of Western civilization on the development of Russian political culture, which, in their estimation, led to the victory of the Bolshevik dictatorship, on the other - the desire to justify the content and outcome of the Russian revolution by the people choice. The initial ethical premise of the Eurasian period under consideration was the awareness of the duty to the people, who adopted the Bolshevik regime with its own ideas and methods, hence the need to recognize this choice as the only right one and to achieve reunification with the people. In the practice of the Bolshevik state, the Eurasians discovered the continuity of an authoritarian political culture that had historically and geographically developed in Russia and other regions of the Eurasian space, requiring unconditional subordination to a strong authority; the social demand for such power derives from the natural and historical-geographical prerequisites for the political mobilization of society as a condition for its survival and development. Analyzing the historical roots of the Eurasian peoples’ power perception, the Eurasians were the first to emphasize the determining role of the geographical factor «development» of society and the state. Another essential geohistorical premise of the Eurasian ideology is the hostility of the liberal ideology of Western civilization, which allows its authors not only to theoretically emphasize their unity with the conservative traditions of the Russian autocracy, but also to seek a political alliance with the Soviet government. Accepting the goals and methods of the Soviet state created on the basis of the Russian Empire, solving the problem of social mobilization, the Eurasians criticized the Soviet communist regime’s repression of the Orthodox faith and the Orthodox Church. They unanimously assessed Orthodoxy as a historical and cultural basis, which ensured for several centuries the cohesion of Russian statehood with the people, which gave this union the desired power and ability to resist the influence of Western civilization. From the point of view of the Eurasian approach, anti-church terror was the main methodological mistake of the communist regime in Russia, which will inevitably lead to its loss of support among the people. According to the author, this approach was brilliantly confirmed by the political crisis of the Bolshevik regime caused by the defeats of the initial period of the Great Patriotic War. The relative unity of the State and the people was restored only by the return to the official ideology of ideas of national patriotic service and recognition by the Soviet Government of the Russian Orthodox Church. These events proved the cultural and historical significance of Eurasian ideology.