Karsavin And The Eurasian Movement (Françoise Lesourd)

Chapter Summary

Karsavin’s Eurasian works are a combination of theoretical reflections on the nature and function of the state and the meaning of revolution for the purpose of staking out a future program and, initially, to establish a convergence between the émigrés and the current state of affairs in Russia. The Eurasian movement (but not individuals) did in fact receive a serious hearing. It has been shown that the transformations in the course of action followed by Soviet power at the end of the 1930s, especially with the return to national values, had something in common with Eurasian theories. In Karsavin’s work, the Eurasian period is the only time that Russia occupied a central and explicit place. His place in the Eurasian movement is paradoxical and his actual participation rather limited, since it lasted only three years.

Keywords: émigrés; Eurasian movement; Karsavin; Petr Savitskii; Siberia; Soviet Russia