Scythians and Huns in Russian History: a Eurasian View

Eurasianism, which arose in the early 1920s in the Russian emigration, became a unique phenomenon in the history of Russian science as the Eurasians created a detailed and well-reasoned concept that represented Russia as a special civilization. Two key points underlay the Eurasian ideology - anti-Westernism and the establishment of special ways or Russia-Eurasian development. It was the historical concept that became the most important component of Eurasianism, since it provided the arguments that support these points. The Eurasianists, and, in particular, P.N. Savitsky, studied the history of Russia and the Russian people through the prism of a geopolitical approach - in direct connection with the «local development» in which people lived and developed. The key myth of Eurasianism was the Mongol stage and the positive influence of the Mongol Empire on the formation of the Russian state. The assertion of special ways of Russia-Eurasian development and the geopolitical approach involved the study of other states that existed in Eurasia in the pre-Mongolian period, as well as the identification of common forms for all types of "Eurasian statehood" to justify their continuity. Being in the same «local development» made such continuity an obligatory fact of historical evolution. But at the initial stages of the development of the movement, there were simply no authors among the Eurasians who could research these issues. For instance, N.S. Trubetskoy argued that the empire of Genghis Khan was the first attempt to create a pan-Eurasian statehood. The purpose of the article is to analyze the discourse of Eurasian authors regarding the states of pre-Mongolian Eurasia, taking into account the influence of the ideological attitudes of the Eurasian concept. The sources are the works published in the Eurasian editions connected with this topic. The greatest contribution was made by the works of G.V. Vernadsky and N.P. Toll. «The Inscription of Russian History» by G. V. Vernadsky outlines a vision of the evolution of «Eurasian statehood», tries to identify its general principles and creates a tradition of "Eurasian statehood" from the Scythian state to the USSR. «Scythians and Huns» by N.P. Toll was the most significant attempt to close this gap in Eurasian literature. However, the creation of "Eurasian statehood" turned out to be rather complicated and contradictory. The theoretical construction presented in the work of G.V. Vernadsky was too abstract, and in some points the data presented in the work of N. P. Toll did not correspond to it. The ideological component of the Eurasian discourse turned out to be stronger than the scientific one. Therefore, the history of pre-Mongolian Eurasia remained underdeveloped in Eurasianism, especially in comparison with the problems of the Mongolian stage. The author declares no conflicts of interests.

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