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Is Aleksandr Dugin
a Traditionalist?
"Neo-Eurasianism" and
Perennial Philosophy
ANTON SHEKHOVTSOV and ANDREAS UMLAND
The authors would like to thank Olena Sivuda for her help in the preparation of this text for publication.
'We 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 f?r die russische 'Neue
Rechte,"' in Macht - Religion - Politik: Zur Renaissance religi?ser Praktiken und Mentalit?ten, ed. Margarete
J?ger and J?rgen Link (M?nster, 2006): 141-57; and Anton Shekhovtsov, "The Palingenetic Thrust of Russian
Neo-Eurasianism: Ideas of Rebirth in Aleksandr Dugin's Worldview," Totalitarian Movements and Political
Religions 9:4 (2008): 491-506. The term uPhilosophia Perennis" as it is used in modern intellectual history
carries 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 fllosofiia i sovremennye razmyshleniia o nei (Moscow, 2007).
2Alexander H?llwerth, Das sakrale eurasische Imperium des Aleksandr Dugin: Eine Diskursanalyse zum
postsowjetischen russischen Rechtsextremismus (Stuttgart/Hannover, 2007); Andreas Umland, "Kontseptualnye
i kontekstualnye problemy interpretatsii sovremennogo russkogo ul'tranatsionalizma," Voprosy filosofii, 2006,
no. 12:75-77; idem, "Tri raznovidnosti postsovetskogo fashizma," in Russkii natsionalizm: Ideologiia i
nastroenie, ed. Aleksandr Verkhovskii (Moscow, 2006), 223-62 (also available at wwwl.ku-eichstaett.de/
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Is Aleksandr Dugin a Traditionalist? 663
A second reason for this investigation is the appearance of various journalistic and academic
studies that have classified Dugin as a "Traditionalist."3
The growing interest among political scientists and other observers in Dugin and his
activities 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's
gradual entry into the Russian intellectual elite and Moscow's political establishment during
the 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 from
justifying our attempt to analyze more thoroughly how his ideology relates conceptually to
Integral Traditionalism.
ZIMOS/forum/docs/Umland6.pdf [unless otherwise noted, all web sites referenced were last accessed on
November 24, 2008]); idem, "Conceptual and Contextual Problems in the Interpretation of Contemporary
Russian 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 Pravye
intellektualy v Rossii: Strategii legitimatsii," Ab Imperio, 2006, no. 3:321-55; and idem, "New Right-Wing
Intellectuals: 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 Decline
of Parties of the Extreme Right Wing in Russia," Weatherhead Center for International Affairs Working Paper
Series 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' Aleksandra
Dugina 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 extremen
Rechten: Die Verbindung von faschistischer Ideologie und gramscistischer Taktik im 'Neoeurasismus' des
Aleksandr Dugin," ?sterreichische Zeitschrift f?r Politikwissenschaft 33:4 (2004): 437-54; idem,
"Postsowjetische Gegeneliten und ihr wachsender Einfluss auf Jugendkultur und Intellektuellendiskurs in
Russland: Der Fall Aleksandr Dugin 1991-2004," Forum f?r osteurop?ische Ideen- und Zeitgeschichte 10:1
(2006): 115-47; Charles Clover, "Dreams of the Eurasian Heartland: The Re-emergence of Geopolitics," Foreign
Affairs 78:2 (1999): 9-13; John B. Dunlop, "Aleksandr Dugin's 'Neo-Eurasian' Textbook and Dmitrii Trenin's
Ambivalent Response," Harvard Ukrainian Studies 25:1-2 (2001): 91-127; Victor Yasmann, "The Rise of the
Eurasians," 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 of
Prejudice 36:3 (2003): 62-76; Marlen Lariuel' [Marlene Lamelle], "Aleksandr Dugin, ideologicheskii
posrednik," in Tsena nenavisti: Natsionalizm v Rossii i protivodeistvie rasistskim prestupleniiam, ed. Aleksandr
Verkhovskii (Moscow, 2005), 226-53; Marlene Lamelle, "Aleksandr Dugin. A Russian Version of the European
Radical 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 k
obshchestvennomu mneniiu?" Vestnik Evrazii - Acta Eurasica 1(31) (2006): 30-43; idem, "(Neo-)Eurasianists
and Politics: 'Penetration' of State Stmctures and Indifference to Public Opinion?" Russian Politics and Law
47:1 (2009): 90-101; Vladimir Ivanov, Alexander Dugin und die rechts extremen Netzwerke: Fakten und
Hypothesen 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.
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664 Anton Shekhovtsov and Andreas Umland
Throughout the 1990s, Dugin repeatedly claimed Guenon as his teacher, and at one time he
dreamt 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. Guenon," in The Essential Amanda
K. 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 Only
Tradition (Albany, 1997); and Harry Oldmeadow, Traditionalism: Religion in the Light of the Perennial
Philosophy (Colombo, 2000). For a comprehensive study of Coomaraswamy see Roger Lipsey, Coomaraswamy,
Vol. 3, His Life and Work (Princeton, 1977). On Guenon see Paul Chacornac, The Simple Life of Rene Guenon
(New York, 2001); Xavier Accart, Guenon, ou, Le renversement des clartes: Influence d'un metaphysicien sur
la vie litteraire et intellectuelle francaise (1920-1970) (Paris, 2005); and Robin E. Waterfield, Rene Guenon
and the Future of the West: The Life and Writings of a 20th-century Metaphysician (Wellingborough, 1987).
7Iurii Stefanov, "Rene Genon i filosofiia traditsionalizma," Voprosy fllosofii, 1991, no. 4:31-42.
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Is Aleksandr Dugin a Traditionalist? 665
esoteric.8 But it was less Guenon or Coomaraswamy than the Italian mystic, former Dadaist,
and SS sympathizer Baron Julius Evola (1896/98-1974) who exerted a crucial influence
on the young Dugin. Evola's pamphlet Pagan Imperialism probably had a formative impact
on Dugin, who translated the text from German into Russian when he was still a young
man, in the late Soviet period.9 As a result, it is Evola's peculiar (re-)interpretation of
Traditionalism, rather than Guenon's original version of the doctrine, that has been used in
many texts written by Russian New Rightists inspired by Dugin's initial elaborations on
Traditionalism.10 And, as we see below, Evola's journalistic and philosophical legacy
constitutes a deep revision, rather than consistent extrapolation, of Guenon's Integral
Traditionalism.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 "Conservative
Revolution." The latter was congenial to Evola's sociopolitical teachings and has been
rightly identified by Leonid Luks as an important source of Dugin's doctrine.12 As is well
known, the ideologists of the "Conservative Revolution"?Carl Schmitt, Arthur Moeller
van den Bruck, Oswald Spengler, Ernst J?nger, and others?became passive accomplices
of the Nazi movement during the Weimar Republic by helping to undermine the legitimacy
of Germany's first democracy among the reading public. Despite their role in the rise of
history's most murderous anti-Slavic movement, the ideas of the "Conservative Revolution"
recently have made a surprising comeback among Russian intellectuals, not least because
of 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 at
www.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 and
Cases 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 Matthew
Feldman (London, 2004), 339-40.
11 On Evola's fascism see Thomas Sheehan, "Myth and Violence: The Fascism of Julius Evola and Alain de
Benoist," Social Research 48:1 (1981): 45-73; Richard Drake, "Julius Evola and the Ideological Origins of the
Radical Right in Contemporary Italy," in Political Violence and Terror: Motifs and Motivations, ed. Peter
Merkl (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's
Strategy 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. 5:33^4; 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 Elementy - eine manich?ische
Versuchung," Forum fiir osteurop?ische Ideen- und Zeitgeschichte 6:1 (2002): 43-58; idem, "Eurasien aus
neototalit?rer Sicht - Zur Renaissance einer Ideologie im heutigen Ru?land," Totalitarismus und Demokratie
1:1 (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 wwwl.ku-eichstaett.de/ZIMOS/forum/docs/3Umland06.pdf;
reprinted in Russkii natsionalizm v politicheskom prostranstve [Issledovaniia po natsionalizmu v Rossii], ed.
Marlene Lamelle [Moscow, 2007], 54-74).
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666 Anton Shekhovtsov and Andreas Umland
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, among
others?are evident in "neo-Eurasianism."14 Dugin personally met several ENR thinkers
in Moscow, Paris, Antwerp, and London.15 The ENR too is indebted to the legacies of
Evola and some "conservative revolutionary" authors?perhaps, most of all to Carl
Schmitt?and ENR authors occasionally refer favorably to Guenon's works.
Dugin's case raises a question also applicable to the assessment of Evola's and the
ENR's interpretation of Integral Traditionalism: are Evola's theories and the ENR's ideology
legitimate successors of Guenon's teaching? The answer, we believe, is that they are not,
or that they are at best skewed ^interpretations of Integral Traditionalism. The universalist
core of the deist worldview of classical Traditionalism?to some extent reminiscent of
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's Ringparabel in the play Nathan the Wise?is lost in the outlooks
of 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, Guenon's and his initial followers'
ideas appear as rhetorical devices for creating an insurmountable opposition between an
open, 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 to
Integral Traditionalist postulates as well. But for the ENR, including Dugin, Traditionalism
does not serve as a source of genuine intellectual inspiration but, instead, as a wellspring of
original-sounding notions and ideas, the primary value of which lies in their usefulness for
conceptually disconnecting postwar right-wing extremism from the discredited terminology
and outlook of German Nazism.
Initially, Alain de Benoist and other ENR thinkers, including Dugin, held more or less
biologically informed prejudices of the "old right's" racism.17 As it evolved, however, the
ENR substituted biologistic fundamentalism with radical cultural particularism with regard
to both ethnic groups and world civilizations. This new form of ascription perverts the
liberal ideal of the right to be different. While its consequences are less aggressive than
ordinary 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 ? la Russe," Religion
Compass: Political Religions (forthcoming).
,5On the New Right see Tamir Bar-On, Where Have All the Fascists Gone? (Aldershot, 2007); Griffin,
"Between Metapolitics and Apoliteia"; idem, "Plus 9a change! The Fascist Pedigree of the Nouvelle Droite," in
The 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."
,6Aleksandr Dugin, Filosofiia traditsionalizma (Moscow, 2002), 42-43, 100-101. On the importance of
the "transcendent unity of religions" for Integral Traditionalism see, inter alia, Frithjof Schuon, De l'unite
transcendante des religions (Paris, 1948); and Oldmeadow, "The Transcendent Unity of Religions," in his
Traditionalism.
17Griffin, "Plus 9a Change! The Fascist Pedigree of the Nouvelle Droite;" Aleksandr Dugin, Giperboreiskaia
teoriia (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 in
Contemporary Russia," Russian Politics and Law 47:1 (2009): 76-89.
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Is Aleksandr Dugin a Traditionalist? 667
1801dmeadow, Traditionalism.
19Harry Oldmeadow, Journeys East: 20th Century Western Encounters with Eastern Religious Traditions
(Bloomington, 2004), 368.
20Quinn, The Only Tradition, 39.
21G?ran 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, // Cammino del Cinabro (Milan, 1972), 13 (emphasis added).
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668 Anton Shekhovtsov and Andreas Umland
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. For
Guenon, "sacerdotal initiation" (to "greater mysteries") is superior to "royal initiation" (to
"lesser mysteries").25 Evola inverted this hierarchy and even suggested the possibility of
self- or auto-initiation. As Mircea A. Tamas, a Canadian expert on Integral Traditionalism
notes, Evola "was a Westerner and could not accept the truth about the Occident and its
lack of initiatory ways. For this reason he had to reject Guenon's teachings and consider a
sort of'auto-initiation' (which would connect the neophyte directly to the Most High, without
the need of a regular initiation or an initiatory organization)."26 This dissimilarity is critical:
For Guenon, priority of the "royal" initiation was the result of a rebellion of the Kshatriyas
who "strove to reverse the normal relationships and who, in certain cases, were able to set
up a sort of irregular and incomplete tradition."27
Importantly, Dugin took Evola's side when describing, in his Filosofiia traditsionalizma,
the differences between Guenon'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 versus
action" was one of the most fundamental antitheses for Guenon, who considered
contemplation 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 of
spiritual meditation to activism?a concept that, for Guenon, was synonymous with the
anti-traditional West.
In its attitude to objective reality, this activism is related less to classical Integral
Traditionalism 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 Fascism
and his temporary collaboration with Benito Mussolini helped to estrange him from Guenon,
who reviled any political product of the hated modern world, including Fascism.31 Xavier
Accart, a historian of French thought and student of comparative literature, pointed out that
the French metaphysician himself warned against a confusion of his ideas with Evola's, and
had condemned Europe's fascist regimes well before World War II.32
25See "Sacerdotal and Royal Initiation," in Rene Guenon, Perspectives on Initiation (Hillsdale, 2004).
26Mircea A. Tamas, The Wrath of Gods: Esoteric and Occult in the Modern World (Toronto, 2004), 150.
27Guenon, Perspectives on Initiation, 251.
28Dugin, Filosofiia traditsionalizma, 403-58.
29Rene Guenon, 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 of
Fascism (New Brunswick, 2001); and M. E. Moss, Mussolini's Fascist Philosopher: Giovanni Gentile
Reconsidered (New York, 2004).
31Sergei Kliuchnikov, "Simvolika i nasledie 'kairskogo otshernika,'" in Rene Genon, Simvoly sviashchennoi
nauki (Moscow, 2004), 15. Iurii Stefanov also notes that one of the reasons of the discord between Guenon and
Evola was the former's apology for the East, while the latter "called upon the defense of the 'Mediterranean
tradition' against the threat from the East" (Stefanov, "Rene Genon," 36). See also Rustem Vakhitov, "Iulius
Evola: Liudi i ruiny," Volshebnaia gora 9 (2006) (available at www.phg.ru/?page=17&article=12). See also
Guenon's letters to Guido De Giorgio, in which he criticizes Evola, at http://nationalism.org/vvv/guenon-de
giorgio.htm, trans. Viktoriia Vaniushkina.
32Accart, Guenon, ou, Le renversement des clartes.
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Is Aleksandr Dugin a Traditionalist? 669
The political inactivity and indifference that the founders of the Traditionalist school,
Guenon 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 a
notable publicist and social activist he has from the very beginning departed not only from
the political passivity of Traditionalism's founders but also from a significant part of their
literary and philosophical heritage.
Some critics wrongly spoke of Guenon's "sympathies" for the French Ultranationalist
organization Action Fran9aise. As his publisher and biographer Paul Chacornac clarified,
Guenon did sympathize to "some degree" with certain leaders of the organization, particularly
Leon Daudet, who "of all the leaders of Action Fran9aise was the most capable of
understanding Guenon, and of accepting, at least partially, his point of view." Guenon,
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 Guenon and
[Action Fran^aise leader] Charles Maurras," due to their difference regarding the nature of
"traditional society." Guenon's 1929 book Spiritual Authority and Temporal Power,
specifically devoted to the hierarchical subordination of action to knowledge, was partly a
response to the conflict between Action Fran9aise and Pope Pius XI. Guenon took sides
with the latter, who had condemned Action Fran9aise as "a danger to faith and morals as
well as to the Catholic education of youth."33 Apparently, the nationalism of Action Fran9aise
was the main reason for Guenon's aversion to Maurras. According to the French
Traditionalist, "all nationalism [is] essentially opposed to the traditional outlook."34
Coomaraswamy's involvement in politics, in turn, was confined to temporary participation
in 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 battlefields
of World War I." His status as a conscientious objector eventually prompted his emigration
to the United States in 1917.35
Neither Evola's worldview nor the doctrines of the ENR and Dugin constitute the
unequivocal rejection of Modernity that Integral Traditionalism explicitly demands.
Although Dugin radically repudiates some manifestations of Western Modernity, he
eventually (resorting to Huntingtonian terminology) promotes "modernization without
Westernization."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 the
objective 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 "alternative
modernity" and the creation of a "new fascist man."37
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670 Anton Shekhovtsov and Andreas Umland
DUGIN AS AN ANTI-TRADITIONALIST
38"Tekhnicheskii progress kak faktor politiki: Aleksandr Dugin v programme Tshchem vykhod' na radio
stantsii 'Ekho Moskvy,'" www.evrazia.org/modules.php?name= News&flle=article&sid=2608.
39Guenon, 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 as
Dugin implied. See Hans Thomas Hakl, "Einige zus?tzliche Bemerkungen zum Fragenkomplex Julius Evola
und 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. According
to Goodrick-Clarke, Reghini exerted a profound influence on the development of Evola's worldview (Black
Sun, 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 name
fourteen years later and borrowed heavily from Reghini's essay, in other ways too. The rupture between the
two thinkers was embarrassing: In 1929, one year after the publication of his Imperialismo pagano, Evola
accused his former "friend" of being a member of a Masonic lodge (Mussolini had banned freemasonry in Italy
in 1925), and tried to sue him on that ground. Concerning the relationship between Crowley and Reghini, the
latter was an Italian representative of the Ordo Templi Orientis, a Masonic organization headed by Crowley
from 1922 until 1947. See Marco Pasi, "The Neverendingly Told Story: Recent Biographies of Aleister Crowley,"
Aries 3:2 (2003): 243.
4lRene Guenon, Studies in Freemasonry and the Compagnonnage (Hillsdale, 2004), 197, 245.
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Is Aleksandr Dugin a Traditionalist? 671
this and related revisions by Dugin, "in terms of Guenonism, 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 as
from what Dugin conceives to have been the British Satanist's political position. Dugin
wrote that Crowley supported all "'subversive' trends in politics?Communism, Nazism,
anarchism and extreme liberation nationalism (especially the Irish one)."43 Referring to
Christian Bouchet, leader of the French radical right-wing organization Nouvelle Resistance,
Dugin calls Crowley a "Conservative Revolutionary."44 In fact, Crowley's true political
views remain unclear. Insofar as his support for Irish nationalism is concerned, Crowley's
separatist guise actually helped him to win the trust of German secret service agents during
World 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 to
Integral Traditionalism, as exponents of Perennial Philosophy, along with his disregard of
such 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 utilized
for the formulation of his own doctrine. What attracts Dugin is not the authenticity of an
author'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 his
contradictory, 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 the
scholar's participation in the interwar Legion of Archangel Michael?a Romanian fascist
organization better known as the Iron Guard?Dugin called the famous scholar a "prominent
traditionalist."47 But in a different text that did not mention Eliade's fascist past, Dugin
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672 Anton Shekhovtsov and Andreas Umland
argued that the scholar belonged among those "authors who can be hardly termed
'traditionalists' in the Guenonian sense."48 In fact, the opposite argument would be logical:
it is precisely Eliade's link to Romanian fascism that undermines the validity of classifying
his outlook as a permutation of Integral Traditionalism; categorizing him as such would be
possible 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 Russian
Traditionalism. But he has done so less by thinking or writing than by being an industrious
publisher. As mentioned, Perennial Philosophy was a fairly unknown body of thought in
Russia during the early 1990s, drawing attention from a limited readership attracted to
forbidden philosophical conceptions. Iurii Stefanov first "popularized" Integral
Traditionalism among educated Russian readers, but the audience for his translations and
own writings was small. It was Dugin who first engaged in large-scale dissemination of
Traditionalist ideas. The inaugural 1991 issue of his miscellany Milyi Angel, featuring
three of Guenon's articles, had a circulation of twenty thousand. As Internet access started
spreading in Russia, Dugin began to post articles from Milyi Angel and Elementy to his web
sites, along interviews with representatives of European Traditionalist schools and other
material, all of which helped to propagate Integral Traditionalism.49 In 1991, Dugin's
publishing house Arktogeia issued one of Guenon's key works, The Crisis of the Modern
World.50 The high circulation of his journals and his extensive use of the Internet allowed
Dugin to contribute significantly to the mass dissemination of Traditionalist ideas in Russia.
While Dugin thus did make a significant contribution to Russian Traditionalism, the
above-indicated caveat should be borne in mind: most of the texts published in Elementy
and Milyi Angel are ENR instrumentalizations of Traditionalism. Articles and essays by
Alain de Benoist, Robert Steuckers, Claudio Mutti, Jean-Francois 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 unanalyzed
but genuinely Traditionalist texts with non-, para-, pseudo- or anti-Traditionalist texts often
does more to obscure the nature of Integral Traditionalism, rather than reveal it. The resulting
conceptual confusion has contributed to the terminological jumble surrounding usage of
the term "Traditionalism" in Russia.
Any assessment of the relationship between Traditionalism and Dugin's ideas cannot ignore
the research of Mark Sedgwick, an influential specialist on Integral Traditionalism and
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Is Aleksandr Dugin a Traditionalist? 673
author of the seminal monograph Against the Modern World: Traditionalism and the Secret
Intellectual History of the Twentieth History (2004).51 In a chapter dedicated to "neo
Eurasianism," Sedgwick attempts to demonstrate the Traditionalist nature of Dugin's doctrine
and to interpret him as a "political Traditionalist." Despite its impressive breadth, superior
style, and factual richness, Sedgwick's fascinating book has received restrained or negative
reviews in a number of journals specializing in Traditionalism and esotericism, not least by
many 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 critics
sympathetic to Guenon's ideas?concerns the author's allegedly insufficient characterization
and unclear delineation of the nature of Integral Traditionalism. Even some of the favorable
reviews have maintained that there is "relatively little space" in the book "devoted to the
signal ideas or broad doctrines held by various schools of Traditionalism," and that "readers
seeking a discussion of Traditionalist thought" would be "disappointed."53
Michael Fitzgerald, who apparently is himself a Traditionalist, accused Sedgwick of
ignoring existing scholarship that contradicts his conclusions and relying instead on
informants, "many of whom openly acknowledge their personal animosity toward one or
another Perennialist writer."54 According to this critique, Sedgwick not only failed to clearly
define the subject of his research but also introduced the oxymoronic term "political
Traditionalism." He also used the term "Traditionalist" to characterize a number of
worldviews, philosophical schools, and even political ideologies, though only some of them
can be indisputably considered full-fledged varieties of Integral Traditionalism. For example,
while Sedgwick's list of "the seven most important Traditionalists" features such
acknowledged representatives of Traditionalism as Coomaraswamy, Guenon, Frithjof
Schuon, and Seyyed Hossein Nasr, it also includes Julius Evola, Mircea Eliade, and
Aleksandr Dugin.55 Fitzgerald notes that, in the case of Evola, Sedgwick himself
acknowledged that "Evola made the most dramatic modifications to a Guenonian
Traditionalism... that was essentially apolitical" and that "Evola's analysis of modernity is
recognizably a variation on the established Traditionalist philosophy."56 Xavier Accart
"We will not publish Guenon?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 the
Twentieth Century (New York, 2004); idem, "Alexander Dugin's Apocalyptic Traditionalism." Paper presented
at 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 the
Secret Intellectual History of the Twentieth Century by Mark Sedgwick," Vincit Omnia Veritas 1:2 (2005):
90-104 (available atwww.religioperennis.org/documents/Fitzgerald/Sedgwick.pdf); and Xavier Accart, "Review
of Against the Modern World: Traditionalism and the Secret Intellectual History of the Twentieth Century by
Mark Sedgwick," Aries 6:1 (2006): 98-105.
"Arthur Versluis, "Review of Against the Modern World: Traditionalism and the Secret Intellectual History
of the Twentieth Century by Mark Sedgwick," Esoterica, 2006, no. 8:185; Colin Beech, "Review of Against
the Modern World: Traditionalism and the Secret Intellectual History of the Twentieth Century by Mark
Sedgwick," 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.
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674 Anton Shekhovtsov and Andreas Umland
also disputes the notion of Dugin as a Traditionalist, basing his critique, he claims, on
established definitions of Traditionalism.57
Notwithstanding such criticisms, Sedgwick's book was the first extensive scholarly
attempt to analyze Duginism through the lens of Integral Traditionalism, and this explains
why his conclusions have been reproduced in subsequent scholarly studies of Dugin and
"neo-Eurasianism."58 Moreover, Sedgwick's book is currently being translated and prepared
for publication in Russia by Moscow's renowned publishing house Novoe Literaturnoe
Obozrenie. For these reasons, we consider here Sedgwick's work and its significance for
the study of post-Soviet "neo-Eurasianism" in some detail. To be sure, some of the criticism
levelled at Sedgwick, such as those by the Traditionalists mentioned above, must be
approached 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 further
discussion. This concerns above all Sedgwick's treatment of Dugin.
Sedgwick notes that "neo-Eurasianism" has four main sources, and that only one of
them is the "Traditionalism that Dugin used to add a moral and existential element to
Mackinder and Haushofer."59 This combination of "Traditionalist" and geopolitical ideas
is 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 this
admission, 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 classifying
Dugin's doctrine. Having distinguished three main elements of the Russian's doctrine?
"apocalypticism, critique of liberal democracy, and geopolitical analysis"?Sedgwick asserts
that "the first two of these elements are clearly of Traditionalist origin."63 But he then goes
on to add that, although "Dugin's apocalypticism ... has Traditionalist roots," it cannot be
"explained by Traditionalism alone, since most Traditionalists place much less emphasis
on 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" but
also to classical Eurasianism of the 1920s, which he identifies with "Geopolitics."66 The
link between the two systems of thought, in Sedgwick's mind, is that "both Guenon and the
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Is Aleksandr Dugin a Traditionalist? 675
Eurasianists were formulating their ideas in the same period, and so were subject to some
of the same general influences."67 We and others, including Ilya Vinkovetsky and Stefan
Wiederkehr, have argued that Dugin primarily used the terminology, rather than ideology,
of the Russian emigre movement of the 1920s and 1930s, while formulating his new version
of "Eurasianism." That is why, in this and other analyses of Dugin's ideology, we have
been placing quotation marks around the term "neo-Eurasianism." Instead of seeking an
authentic source for his constructs, the Russian neo-fascist may have embraced classical
Eurasianism for more prosaic purposes. Because it was created by some highly educated
and regarded Russian emigres, "Eurasianism" has allowed Dugin to disguise his more
important non-Russian?in particular, Western European?ideological roots: the
"Conservative Revolution," the ENR, Evola, and so on.68 Therefore, possible links between
Integral Traditionalism and classical Eurasianism?however doubtful they might be?seem
of 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 presented
in 2006. According to Sedgwick, Dugin's activities can be characterized as Traditionalist
because "his spiritual practice may be explained in terms of Guenon, and his political
activity may be explained in terms of Evola, or perhaps in terms of Nietzsche and
existentialism."69 However, Integral Traditionalism has little in common with Nietzsche or
existentialism. There is little reason to consider Dugin, on this basis, an adherent of
Philosophia Perennis.
Equally ambivalent are Sedgwick's observations on the allegedly Traditionalist
character of Dugin's religious activities and spiritual life. He notes that Dugin belongs to
the Edinoverie section of the Old Believers?a Church that recognizes the authority of the
Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church. In Sedgwick's words, "this detail
makes no sense in Guenonian or Traditionalist terms, but makes a lot of sense in Russian
terms, since it allows Dugin to have excellent relations with the mainstream Orthodox
Church."70 Such a strategy gives Dugin the opportunity to take part in political life of the
Russian Federation?an activity that would have been more difficult, if not impossible, had
Dugin followed Guenon's example and become a Muslim.71 To be sure, Sedgwick recognizes
that "Dugin's personal religious practice... cannot be explained purely in religious terms."72
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676 Anton Shekhovtsov and Andreas Umland
Still, Sedgwick maintains that Dugin's activities can be explained in Traditionalist terms,
as his "spiritual practice may be explained in terms of Guenon."73 However, it is doubtful
that Guenon would have regarded adherence to a society's dominant religious principles as
an expression of Traditionalism. Adapting one's spiritual practice to reigning political
correctness, in the putative Traditionalist's home country, is inimical to the spirit of Integral
Traditionalism.
We are going into such detail when criticizing Sedgwick's otherwise excellent study
not simply because its Russian translation may acquire significance as a seminal treatment
of "neo-Eurasianism" in Russia. It could have a political impact as well, providing Dugin
with a pseudo-conservative veil that obscures the revolutionary-ultranationalist?that is,
fascist?agenda underlying his publishing activities. In recent years Dugin has been trying
to 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 in
this endeavor.
Dugin's form of "Traditionalism"?if one chooses to use this term?has little relation to
the philosophical school created by Guenon and Coomaraswamy. As Versluis puts it, Guenon
would 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 Perennial
Philosophy serves Dugin as an arsenal of unconventional terms and offbeat notions?freely
reaggregated in Dugin's worldview?rather than as an organic precursor or ideational
foundation of "neo-Eurasianism."77
Why, then, this extensive treatment of Dugin's clearly awkward historical and theoretical
mixtures? His articles and books could be of intellectual interest only to those Russian
readers who do not know foreign languages well enough to read, or do not care to get
access to, the relevant European literature, or to those seeking ideological indulgence to
feed their anti-Western?particularly anti-American?ressentiment. But Dugin's numerous
publications and frequent TV appearances have become part and parcel of the daily political
and intellectual life of contemporary Russia. This article, then, seeks to apply a corrective
to the startling seriousness with which prominent politicians, scholars, journalists, and
cultural 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.
760ne 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 of
contemporary Western liberal democracies. These phenomena can be considered as being inherent to the
project of Modernity. See Griffin, Modernism and Fascism. From this perspective, the New Right's radical
repudiation 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" ("The
Palingenetic Thrust of Russian Neo-Eurasianism").
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Is Aleksandr Dugin a Traditionalist? 611
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