Alexander Dugin

Aleksandr Dugin (born in Moscow in 1962) is a Russian philosopher, analyst and political strategist, the leading theorist of neo-Eurasianism, a current that argues Russia should rebuild a distinct geopolitical identity against the West. His thought belongs to the far-right current of post-Soviet politics, and he is one of the most influential and controversial figures in contemporary Russia, although his real weight in power is disputed.

He was born into a family linked to military intelligence: his father was a senior officer in the GRU. In the 1980s he took part in anti-communist dissent, first in the so-called Yuzhinsky Circle, a group with occult and esoteric leanings, and later in the nationalist organization Pamyat. He worked as a journalist and, in the early 1990s, co-founded the National Bolshevik Party with Eduard Limonov. He left it in 1998 after disputes with his partner. Around this time he read Julius Evola, René Guénon and the Traditionalist school, whose ideas shaped his later work.

In 1997 he published Foundations of Geopolitics, his best-known book, which was used in Russian military academies and alarmed Western political scientists. It argued that Russia should regain influence through alliances and expansion in order to confront a supposed Atlanticist empire led by the United States. In 2002 he founded the Eurasia Party, and he developed his program in essays such as The Fourth Political Theory (2009), which seeks to move beyond liberalism and Marxism through a conservative revolution inspired by Heidegger.

His philosophy sets a West associated with atomizing individualism, liberal democracy and human rights against a universalism grounded in the idea of empire. Borrowing from Heidegger and from the Greek tradition, he uses the opposition between Earth and Heaven to read history as a clash of civilizations.

His relationship with power is debated. He advised figures in the State Duma and the ruling United Russia party, and from 2009 to 2014 he headed a department at Moscow State University, losing the post after remarks about Ukrainians. Since 2023 he has directed the Ivan Ilyin Higher School of Politics. He has often been called 'Putin's brain', although many analysts consider that influence overstated. His impact is felt mainly in nationalist circles, in Russian geopolitical debate and in the spread of European New Right ideas.