Oriental Studies (Jun 2018)
Eurasianism and M. V. Shakhmatov (Distinction between Viewpoints Revisited)
Abstract
The article is dedicated to emigrant historian M. V. Shakhmatov, the creator of the ‘State of Truth’ theory resulting from his analysis of ancient Russian literary and folklore compositions. Its basis was constituted by the concepts of sobornost (‘cooperation’), odinachestvo (‘equality’) and divine nature of political power. Despite present-day studies, it is quite difficult to consider it ‘Eurasianistic’ by nature though its author got a number his works printed in several volumes of the Eurasianists. In his papers there are no such ideas as the ‘outcome to the East’, decisive factor of development place, perception of Russia as Eurasia or the idea of struggle as the driving force of history; finally, there was no Eurasianistic understanding of the benefits of the Mongol invasion. Ideologists of Eurasianism considered M. V. Shakhmatov to be a temporary companion of theirs who was used merely as a ‘specialist’. In turn, he declared his break with them. In general, his views can be rather attributed to the revival of Slavophile ideas about the uniqueness of Russia’s historical path and its sharp contrast to the West. They stemmed not from the Eurasianistic movement but from personal searches in the course of work on a master’s thesis on the history of ancient political ideas.The article analyzes M. V. Shakhmatov’s views, the circumstances of the appearance of his works in the Eurasianistic Vremennik, reflects the Eurasianists’ opinions about the author contained in the correspondence of G. V. Florovsky to N. S. Troubetzkoy, N. S. Troubetzkoy to P. P. Sovchinski. This correspondence has not been taken into account by previous researchers of M. V. Shakhmatov’s works which resulted in somewhat incorrect conclusions. Given the relevance of the study of Eurasianism as a whole, and the Eurasianistic concept of Russian history in particular, the distinction between viewpoints of M. V. Shakhmatov and Eurasianists will allow to avoid many errors in future publications. It may contribute to further detailed consideration of Eurasianistic compositions by representative of the 1920–1930s Russian emigration.
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