This essay examines the engagement of the European Far Right during the Cold War with the legacy of classical geopolitics, above all the work of Mackinder, Spykman, Haushofer and Schmitt. The concerns of geopolitics with immanent spatial "realities" gave it an instrumental utility for the EFR as the latter sought to move beyond the obsessive preoccupation of interwar fascism (in its dominant German version) with factors of genetics and race. Beyond this, classical geopolitics provided conceptual and theoretical support for the EFR as it elaborated new ideological principles and political projects. On the one hand this involved a novel vision of pan-European unity that rested on the principle of continentalist autarky. On the other, with key concepts such as Heartland and Rimland, classical geopolitics offered a sophisticated but strategically flexible meta-geography of Eurasian space that was of immense value, for it could accommodate the EFR's ambivalence regarding the geographical limits of its envisioned pan-Europe and the nature of its relationship to its Eurasian neighbour, the USSR. The essay argues that while the conceptual continuities with the interwar period were vital, the deployment of classical geopolitical theory by the EFR after 1945 was driven by a logic of its own, one that was directly connected to the historical context and political realities of the Cold War. EFR ideologues used classical geopolitics essentially in order to negotiate the particular challenges of their day and to sustain and develop their own political agendas.

Despite the sympathy for Vladimir Putin’s Russia expressed by much of the European far right (EFR), the question of Europe and Russia has for decades represented a considerable ideological challenge for it. This essay examines the ways in which this challenge is addressed in the work of the French intellectual Guillaume Faye (1949-2019), one of the EFR’s most influential theoreticians. Faye’s writings reveal the full scope of the far right’s ambivalence toward Russia, identifying it alternatively as a mortal enemy of the pan-European project, a potential strategic ally that despite its non-European character was vital for Europe’s purposes of resisting the American behemoth, or finally as a thoroughly European country and an essential part of the European “bio-culture.” In order to support these various positions, Faye deploys alternative ideological narratives, one based on geopolitics and the other on the precepts of ethnopolitics. This particular ideological juxtaposition has a deep history in the thinking of the EFR, and Faye’s polemics reveal how it has become intertwined with the special complexities of the Russia problem.

This introductory essay sets up the discussion in this special section on the first English language translation of Friedrich Ratzel's 1901 Lebensraum essay. After providing biographical context for this controversial nineteenth-century German geographer, we offer a brief history of what is perhaps his most famous conceptual contribution: Lebensraum (living space). We end by introducing the five contributions to this special section.

The essays collected in this forum discuss the geopolitical legacy of the Russian Revolution of 1917, one of the most momentous political events of the twentieth century. From a range of different academic disciplines and perspectives, the authors consider how the profound transformations in society and politics were refracted through space and geography, and how enduring these refractions proved to be. The authors focus on three themes that have been dominant in Russian affairs over the past century: 1)the problem of center-periphery relations, 2)the civilizational dynamics of Russia’s self-identification in relation to Europe and to Asia, and 3)the geopolitics of national identity.

Although we often think about geographical continents as fixed natural entities, they are in fact also the product of imaginative construction.  The most recent example of this process is the emergence of the continental concept of "Eurasia."  This brief essay considers the historical origins of the Eurasia idea in the geological sciences of the 19thcentury, its development in 20th-century theories of global geo-strategy as well as ideologies of Russian national identity, and its eventual international "breakthrough" into public discourses with the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union.  It discusses some of the different ways Eurasia is represented today in terms of its boundaries and essential characteristics, and finally offers a series of arguments for the usefulness of "Eurasian Studies" as a platform for university research and teaching.

This essay examines the Etnogenez series of science fiction and fantasy novels. Launched in 2009 by the media producer, "political technologist," and Kremlin insider Konstantin Rykov, Etnogenez has enjoyed truly phenomenal success, developing into one of the most ambitious publishing projects of the post-Soviet period. At present it numbers more than fifty works, which circulate in millions of copies and additionally are broadly disseminated on the Internet and as e-books, audiobooks, and podcasts. There are Etnogenez fan clubs, computer games, and dozens of Internet discussion groups. Although the novels in the series differ widely in their plots and subjects, and are written in a variety of different science fiction genres, all of them are loosely inspired by the work of the historian and geographer Lev Nikolaevich Gumilev, in particular his theories of ethnogenesis (from which the project takes its name), passionarnost', and Eurasianism. The essay explores the powerful resonances between the Etnogenez project, the Gumilevian legacy, and the leading political and social narratives of Putin's Russia.

The striking affinities that have developed between radical-conservative movements in Western Europe and Russia since the end of the Cold War have been widely noted. This essay considers these affinities through the example of the Soviet historian and geographer Lev Nikolaevich Gumilev (1912–1992). It argues that Gumilev and the European New Right developed perspectives that were highly comparable, founded on similar principles, and articulated through similar images and allusions. Yet despite the powerful resonances in terms of basic concepts and theoretical orientation, there were nonetheless deep differences in terms of the conclusions regarding the practical implications for their respective societies that Gumilev and the Europeans deduced from these principles.

The relationship between energy systems, on the one hand, and narratives and practices of identity building at different scales, on the other, has received little attention in the mainstream human geography and social science literature. There is still a paucity of integrated theoretical insights into the manner in which energy formations are implicated in the rise of particular cultural self-determinations, even though various strands of work on energy and identity are frequently present throughout the wideand rather disparatecorpus of social science energy research. Therefore, this article explores the manner in which the exploitation and management of energy resources is woven into discourses and debates about national identity, international relations, a nation's path of future development, and its significance on the global arena using the case of Russia. We investigate some of the policies, narratives, and discourses that accompany the attempt to represent this country as a global oenergy superpowero in relation to the resurrection of its domestic economy and material prosperity, on the one hand, and the restoration of its global status as a derzhava (or oGreat Powero), on the other. Using ideas initially developed within the field of critical discourse analysis, we pay special attention to the national identity-building role played by geographical imaginations about the country's past and present energy exports to neighboring states. We argue that they have created a hydrocarbon landscape in which the discursive and material have become mutually entangled to create an infrastructurally grounded vision of national identity.

English Title:  "Geographical Uncertainties: Four Theses on Russia, Europe and Asia"

Traditionally accepted explanations of the question of whether Russia belongs to Europe or Asia include: Russia is a European country; Russia is different from Asia; Russia is a Eurasian country. Each of these views contains some truth, but all of then need to be further refined. The following theses will contribute to further understanding of the Russia’s belonging to Europe or Asia: 1) Russia is not only a European country, but is also a European empire. 2) Radical advocates of Eurasian doctrine do not oppose European nature of Russia, but speak against the view that Russia is an empire. 3) The advocates of Eurasian doctrine claim thatRussia is a part of Eurasia and not Asia. Advocates of Eurasian doctrine see Eurasia as a civilization completely different from either Europe or Asia. 4) The advocates of Eurasian doctrine view Russia — Eurasia as a potential colony, and Russia's mission is to be an anti-colonial leader.