General Director Strategic Culture Foundation In commemoration of P. N. Savitsky In 2005 we celebrate the 110 anniversary of Pyotr Nikolaevich Savitsky (1895 - 1968), an outstanding Russian geographer, economist, historian, political philosopher, and a central figure in the Eurasian realm of Russian philosophy. At present Russian Eurasianism is largely associated with the works of P. N. Savitsky. * * * Savitsky wrote that the historical mission of the Russian-Eurasianist circle, which declared itself in 1921, was "an attempt of a creative reaction of the Russian national identity to the accomplished fact of the Russian revolution" (2, p. 369). It is this reaction to the revolutionary catastrophe, which destroyed the Russian empire and eliminated the former ruling social stratum, that constitutes the current importance of the стр. 5 Euroasian heritage. Definitely, the Russian-Eurasian idea is congenial to the contemporary Russian national identity, for which the demise of the Soviet super-power has been "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century" (V. V. Putin, Presidential Address to the Federal Assembly, 2005). The sharpness of "the historical spasm" (3, p. 4), which separated the two epochs, made P. N. Savitsky and the scholars from his circle focus on the task of overcoming this break and restoring the succession of the Russian statehood with its ten-century-long historical tradition. The Euroasianists' role was to "realize Russia's cultural and historical originality" (1, p. 85). Deeply convinced that "the Russian revolution has put an end to Russia as a part of Europe" and "disclosed the nature of Russia as an independent historical entirety" (1, p. 101), P. N. Savitsky wrote that "Russia is a continent in itself, which is in a certain sense equal to Europe. In a certain sense, Russia is becoming the ideological focus of the world" (3, p. 3). The Russian-Eurasian idea evolved and was formed as a Pax Rossica idea. People of fundamental scie ... Читать далее