Eurasians and muse of Klio: from mythology to a science

This article discusses epistemological importance of the Eurasian interpretation of national history. Semantic core of this doctrine is ideological rationalisation of the myth connected to Russian Revolution. Eurasians have not created own philosophy of the history, meanwhile they have offered original perspective of perception of a historical material according to which the history of Russia has found a new and unusual view. They have resolutely refused to consider national history as history of Russian people and Russian state. The subject of historical process in their works and essays is the territory of the country. According to Eurasians the history of this space has theleological character and directs to a definite purpose of unification of the whole territory of Eurasia in one state "body". The Eurasian doctrine was initially perceived and designed by its creators as the effective tool of political mobilization for struggle against the Bolsheviks, that is as an ideology. They used materials and data connected to various humanitarian and natural-science disciplines on purpose to legitimize the Eurasian ideology by means of a science. These facts were taken from a scientific discourse and transformed to the ideological constructs directed to a substantiation of the Eurasian doctrine as a whole. Failure of attempts to give a satisfactory scientifically-historical proving to irrational belief in the Eurasian myth was realized by some Eurasians, and in particular by N.S. Trubetskoy. At the same time the requirement for such substantiation, put in public consciousness of a modern history, forced the main theorist of the Eurasian movement to create ideological texts which he characterized as "thoughtless", "tendentious", not protected from «the serious historical criticism». Trubetskoy believed that these texts are useful to the Eurasian movement from the point of view of its (movement) political ends, but aspired to keep a distance in relation to them as the scientist. The Eurasian conception of national history was perceived by their contemporaries as rough violence over the historical reality and the historical science. It broke off with tradition of a native historical science, conflicted to known historic facts, and in set of cases and with itself. This ideological construct carried out exclusively official function within the limits of the Eurasian ideology. Eurasians aspired to destroy the view of Russian state as Russian project and wanted to replace it with its Eurasian project. Positioning of Russia as Eurasia, Russian people as Eurasian people fixed at ideological level the new foreign-policy priorities of the future postcommunist Russia which, according to views of Eurasian theorists, should head struggle of the countries and people of Asia against political and cultural hegemony of the West.

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