Is Aleksandr Dugin a Traditionalist? “Neo-Eurasianism” and Perennial Philosophy ANTON SHEKHOVTSOV AND ANDREAS UMLAND “Frankly, I hate traditionalists—no matter whether they are of domestic or Western 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 adequate assessment of the multifaceted phenomenon of post-Soviet Russian “neo-Eurasianism,” as a whole, and to the eclectic social doctrine of Aleksandr Dugin (b. 1962), in particular? 1 A final answer to this question would be only possible if Dugin’s International Eurasian Movement (Mezhdunarodnoe “Evraziiskoe dvizhenie”)—or another organization principally inspired by him—were to rise to power and through its policies clarify which aspects of his vague ideology are most significant. 2 Nevertheless, in this article we shall evaluate the significance of Integral Traditionalism for Dugin’s ideological constructs. Such an attempt is 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. 1 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 für die russische ‘Neue Rechte,’” in Macht – Religion – Politik: Zur Renaissance religiöser Praktiken und Mentalitäten, ed. Margarete Jäger and Jürgen Link (Münster, 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 “Philosophia 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 filosofiia i sovremennye razmyshleniia o nei (Moscow, 2007). 2 Alexander Höllwerth, 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 www1.ku-eichstaett.de/ The Russian Review 68 (October 2009): 662–78 Copyright 2009 The Russian Review