Philosopher, political scientist and ultranationalist writer, Aleksandr Dugin, 60, defends “Eurasianism”, the expansion of Moscow’s presence into the regions of historical influence of the Russian people – no matter if they belong to other sovereign countries, such as Ukraine.
Called by many “Vladimir Putin’s ideologue”, he was once close to the president and adviser to several politicians, but never had the official endorsement of the Kremlin. In 2014, he was fired from Moscow State University after critics interpreted his remarks as a call for genocide against the Ukrainian people. In recent years, Ukraine has banned several of his books.
Dugin is the creator of the Fourth Political Theory, in which he defends an alternative to the three ideologies that dominated the 20th century: liberalism, communism and fascism. According to his proposal, formulated in a 2009 book, the main subject of history would be the people, not the individual or the State.
In the 1990s, Dugin was a longing for the Soviet Union, having been one of the founders of the National Bolshevik Party. His position shifted to the defense of “Eurasian space” at the beginning of this century, a period that coincided with Putin’s rise to power.
The following decade was the closest between the two. The philosopher worked during this period on the concept of the “post-Soviet space”, which was absorbed by the president.
But Dugin’s current influence over Russian President Vladimir Putin has been the subject of speculation, with some analysts saying it is significant and others deeming it minimal.
According to the Russian state TV network, the philosopher is considered a marginal figure in the country. The Rand Corporation, the US military think tank, wrote in 2017 that, as much as the Western media makes Dugin’s alleged connections with Putin, he is “more of an extremist provocateur with limited and peripheral impact than an influential analyst with direct impact on policy”.
Killed on Saturday in an explosion, Dugin’s daughter Daria Dugina broadly supported her father’s ideas and supported Russia’s actions in Ukraine in appearances on state TV.
Daria, who Russian state media said was 30, was also targeted by US and UK sanctions, which accused her of publishing misinformation about Ukraine.
This Friday (20), before the incident, Aleksandr Dugin wrote on his Telegram channel that Russia cannot win the Ukrainian War unless it puts all of society on the battlefield. He said his country “challenged the West as a civilization”. “That means we must go all the way.” he stated.
Brazilian followers
Dugin has come to Brazil twice, speaks Portuguese, founded a study center in São Paulo and has a legion of Brazilian followers.
In an interview with Folha in 2014, he stated that Ukraine is an “artificially created failed state”. That year, he came to Brazil for a seminar on the ideas of the philosopher Julius Evola (1898-1974), considered one of the theorists of Italian neo-fascism.
The United States imposed sanctions on Dugin in 2015 for his role in policies that threatened Ukraine, such as helping to recruit separatist fighters in the neighboring country’s east. The European Union had already imposed sanctions against him in 2014, at the time of the annexation of Crimea by Russia.
