'A true intellectual, a man for whom his thoughts are more important than his physical existence': this is how they write about the Russian thinker Alexander Dugin, the Western press calls the philosopher 'Putin's mentor', 'the brain of the Kremlin', 'the ideological foundation of the SMO'. To destroy him, terrorists blew up Dugin's daughter Daria a year ago. What did she die for and what ideas does Dugin himself support? Interview by Marina Hakimova-Gatzemeyer.

- Alexander Gelyevich, you are often referred to by the not entirely clear term 'Eurasian'. What is Eurasianism?

- It is a worldview that emerged a hundred years ago among white emigrants. The founders of this political philosophy were the great linguist and thinker Prince Nikolai Sergeevič Trubetskoij, the Russian economist, geographer and cultural scientist Peter Savitsky, son of the academician Vladimir Vernadsky, the historian George Vernadsky, the philosopher Vladimir Il'in, the philosopher Lev Karsavin and others. Russian society in the 19th century was dominated by the idea that Russia was a European power. The founders of Eurasianism argued that Russia was not part of the Romano-Germanic world, but was an independent civilisation. We are not just a special Slavic-Orthodox Europe, but a separate world, inheriting Byzantine and Mongolian traditions, the cultures of the Turkic, Caucasian and Finno-Ugric peoples. And this is not a defect, but an advantage. This is the conception of Russia as a supranational empire.

An intermediate link between the first Eurasians and us, neo-Eurasians, was the historian Lev Nikolayevič Gumilëv. We took up his line of thought in the 1980s and applied it to new historical conditions. We broadened our criticism of the Romano-Germanic world and shifted it to the Anglo-Saxon world, which today has reached its full and terrible degeneration. We continued to criticise the West, to defend Russia as a peculiar civilisation, to defend the Russian mission in history. This ideology could have become Russia's destiny immediately after the collapse of the Soviet Union. But, unfortunately, in the 1990s our country reached a dead end, taking a completely wrong path. It led us to the abyss, to war, to collapse. And now we are trying to get out of this historical black pit, where we collapsed together with the Western liberal reformers. This is the essence of today's historical moment.

- Can we say that we are now fighting for Russia as a separate civilisation?

- Yes, we are. There are many examples of our confrontation with western civilisation. In the beginning, Eurasians insisted that Western civilisation is hostile, poisonous, aggressive towards Russia and that its claims to universality are a threat to our existence. And so, in today's NWO confrontation with the West, this is becoming evident. Another thing is whether our people, our society, our leadership understand that it is the Eurasian scenario that is unfolding?

We have always said that unless we build a sovereign civilisation independent of the West, we will always be in a humiliated position. The West is a racist and selfish model that is impossible to get along with. We have proposed to close ourselves off from the West or only take from it what strengthens us, and to always be ready for a serious war. In this sense, it is very interesting that white emigrants who went to the West realised from their own experience that there is nothing more dangerous for a Russian than the Western world. And we are convinced of this by the example of our lives.

The second point, to which my daughter Daria Dugina has often drawn attention. She spoke about the composition of our front. The best definition is the 'Eurasian fighting brotherhood': the front is not just a brotherhood of nations, but representatives of various ethnic groups. The Russians form the core, but alongside them fight Chechens, Tatars, Finno-Ugric, Buryats and Kalmyks. They are united not only by belonging to the same state, but also by deep traditional values.

- I would like to ask you about two musicians, Sergei Kuryokhin and Yegor Letov, who considered themselves your followers and pupils. Unfortunately they passed away early, but they are undisputed idols of the youth. Letov's songs are also performed by rappers today. Is it true that you influenced them?

- I was friends with Egor Letov and Sergey Kuryokhin. I met them when they were already formed personalities, so I cannot recognise myself as their teacher. As for Yegor Letov, he is a great poet, a wonderful musician, an artist, a painter. And his lyrics, his songs have an enormous philosophical meaning. If you like, he is a representative of the cursed poets of our time. All his songs are written with blood, paid for with risk. He was what a poet should be: he sacrificed himself to poetry. And Sergei Kuryokhin is much more rational, calibrated, sober, ironic.

- Thirty years ago, Kuryokhin said that the only true art form was politics.

- He was an experimenter in this sense. For example, he proposed giving zoology and anthropology lectures in a disco with unobtrusive music. And vice versa, during lectures at the institute, to dance. In the disco one listened to Kant and during the lectures one danced. He suggests combining leisure and education, serious and non-serious, politics and art. I find that interesting. After all, many people entered politics to change the world. And that requires romance, imagination. Kuryokhin, Letov, Eduard Limonov and many other friends of mine had such a complete attitude: combining different aspects of life. They were interested in politics as a way to an impossible freedom. Freedom in society is unattainable, but its pursuit is the main task of the human being. Unfortunately, both Letov and Kuryokhin are not appreciated. The banal cultural environment of the age of liberalism did not understand them at all. By switching to the side of anti-liberalism, of course, they signed their own judgement. But I believe their time will come.

- Is it true that as a young man, working as a caretaker, you learnt nine languages yourself?

- You know, I don't like youth. Neither mine nor that of others. I think it is a humiliating time when we feel inferior, when we want to become adults as soon as possible. Rejoicing in youth is like an invalid rejoicing that he doesn't have an arm. Rejoicing that you haven't made it yet. That is why since my youth, since the late seventies, I have been striving not to be young anymore. I couldn't stand being young, or other young people. I was friends with people much older than me. Yes, during the Soviet period I worked as a caretaker. For a short time, though. I felt that this job gave me maximum time to study philosophy, theology, linguistics, other sciences. Society did not give me the opportunity to do these things, so I chose this type of hermitage. It was dictated by a desire to stop being young as soon as possible. I tried to learn languages, to read as many books as I could, to translate, to study, to do research. It was the essence of my life.

In general, it is not the position you occupy in society that is important, but who you are. There are perfect people among caretakers and people in ordinary professions. And similarly, there are fools, idiots and monsters among academics or high officials. The German philosopher Nietzsche wrote: 'I foresee a time when the last noblemen will be regarded by society as scum. And, conversely, the scum will constitute the ruling elite'. Unfortunately, it sometimes seems that the times prophesied by Nietzsche have arrived.

- Did your father Heli Alexandrovič, Lieutenant General of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff, share his ideas?

- He reacted very badly. He was a Soviet man, devoted to Marxism-Leninism. He worked in the State Security Committee, holding important positions. My father divorced my mother when I was three years old, he did not live with us, although we met him from time to time. During his lifetime we had no relationship. But we were united by the fact that we were both patriots. At the end of his life, my father was very worried about Russia, about the decadence of the state, about the liberal changes of the 1990s. That brought us together. But in general he had no influence on me. Although he sometimes took many books from me at my request, reluctantly, but obeying his father's duty, and photocopied them at his workplace - in the bowels of the KGB. Without attracting much attention. At that time, in the 1980s, there were no photocopiers in the public domain. I remember him baffled and even convicted, handing me a huge stack of pages with Basil Valentine's alchemical treatise in old German.

- And his mother, a medical doctor, what did she think of his youthful hobbies?

- My mother worked as a doctor and she too looked at my interests with horror and incomprehension. But for me it was not fundamental. Above all, I hated youth and the state where you are not yet a full-fledged person, and you are already set on the tracks that lead to a place where you will never grow up as a full-fledged person. Thank God, I met spiritual parents, people who influenced me a lot more, really. I realise now how important the institution of spiritual parents, godparents, is. In the past, natural parents educated their children until the age of thirteen, until puberty. Then the children were entrusted to godparents. Why was there this rotation? Because physical parents have limits. They are used to taking care of, let's say, their children's bodily appearance, they are responsible for it. And sometimes they do not have the time to take care of the spiritual and cultural development. The institution of godparents was created to help a young person become a spiritual person. This is another level of education and instruction. Thus, at the age of eighteen, I met spiritual parents who played a decisive role for me. They were philosophers, metaphysicians, religious, bearers of the spirit of opposition, supporters of tradition, of the sacred. Among them I found my spiritual family. And when I had my family, I tried to combine them: to make my physical children my spiritual children at the same time. This, by the way, is very difficult and very risky.

- Your son Arthur is a philosopher, but also a musician. He creates music that, in my opinion, is similar to the music you created in your youth. Can it be said that he is continuing his work?

- Arthur is a completely independent person and his music is different. He is interested in art, he is a philosopher, but he has chosen the field of aesthetics and artistic creation. That is why he paints and does art criticism. Fathers and sons is a classic problem. In my youth, I rebelled against my father, who was a communist and a KGB general. In a way, my son Arthur also rebelled at some point against my ideas to become free and independent. As a result, he overcame this crisis. I tried not to pressure him, to make him stop being a young man as soon as possible. Arthur is an accomplished thinker, the creator of his own philosophical and artistic family. I am happy that he shares my main vector, even though he has a particular position. And this I encourage.

- A year ago Arthur got married. Recently on the Internet I saw a photo of her with a small child in her arms. A grandchild?

- Since everything about me involves a risk, I will not explain it. Is that why people participate or support SMO, hiding their faces? It is not because they are afraid for themselves. It is because nowadays any detail of personal life is extremely dangerous and can harm their loved ones.

- You said that an artist pays revelation with himself. To what extent do these words apply to the fate of Dasha Dugina, who was killed by a terrorist a year ago?

- We recently published Dasha's diaries. It is entitled The Heights and Heights of My Heart. It is an extraordinary book in which Dasha reflected constantly on this: what was she willing to do to defend her convictions? What could she sacrifice for the Russian people she loves so much? It seems to me that any such statement is always tested by fate. What can be said about Dasha? He took no part in military actions, although he was spiritually and intellectually at war with his enemies. He considered those who hated the Motherland, Russia and Orthodoxy to be enemies. But she did not even perform a violent action, she did not insult anyone! Yet she became the victim of a ruthless, cold and brutal murderer, a terrorist (a woman, and with a child), and Dasha was always interested in the problems of women's destiny, women's sanctity, women's vice or, conversely, women's exaltation. It was orthodox feminism.

What is there to guess? Dasha's fate speaks for itself. What happened to her is a horror. And what happened to us... It is very difficult to speak of it in philosophical or poetic terms. I believe that Dasha's death shook our people. Dasha has become a national heroine. I meet different people and they all tell me the same thing: Dasha has become the embodiment of our spirit. People who did not know her or me have become followers of her memory.

Every man who gave his life for his country is a hero and his memory is sacred. But Dasha also embodied innocence, which is truly horrible. When a man takes up arms and fights our enemies, that is one thing. Sure, he's a hero. But he can defend himself, fight back. And Dasha couldn't do that.

In her diary, about ten years ago, when Dasha was not even interested in politics, she suddenly wrote: 'One day I will give my life for my people, for my state, and I will become a national hero'. I mean, a little girl, a very young girl, doesn't say, 'I will get married and have children', but she talks about something like that... This is evidence of a certain depth.... Of course, I dreamed that she would have a family, a husband, children. But she wanted to be a heroine. There is a providence here. We don't know and I can't even accept that. God's ways are inexplicable, and what are the ways in which he leads us to righteousness and immortality, no one can predict.

- Is it possible to teach spirituality to a person?

- I think so. If we don't take those children who grew up in religious and patriotic families, most others are victims of the most monstrous perversion. Because the culture of upbringing and education over the past three decades has consistently turned people into liberals. Into individualists, cut off from society. And, of course, the representatives of the ruling elites in the 1990s are responsible for the liberalism of the young, who have built their entire culture and education on liberalism.

So we have to rebuild the entire education system, culture, information, even daily life. I think that people brought up with false principles are victims of the most serious disease, liberalism. It is a form of ideological addiction, just like the allure of the West, just like gadgets. From the liberal point of view, a person must be as shallow as a screen is flat. What philosopher Gilles Deleuze calls 'schizomass'. That is, liberalism makes people schizomasses. And how can we explain to them that there is a soul when their entire culture insists that there is no soul and ridicules the soul and those who believe in it?

- To say goodbye, I would like to ask you about the future, how you see it. About your dream.

- In theology there is a similar concept: 'apophaticism'. It affirms the existence of things that have no name in language. Well, my dream has no name. And if I share it, I risk being misunderstood.

Source: http://www.moya-semya.ru

Translation by Lorenzo Maria Pacini