Mikhail Suslov 
Geopolitical Imagination 
Ideology and Utopia in Post-Soviet Russia

This timely book surveys key themes and tendencies in the development of conservative ideology in Russia. Mikhail Suslov argues that Russia’s historical experience of Westernization and the geopolitical struggle for recognition led her conservatism towards critical reflection about Russia’s cultural authenticity and its place in the world. As a result, unlike canonical ‘Western’ versions of conservatism, the Russian one was not only a response to liberal and revolutionary ideas and practice, but also an opposition to the worldview of the ‘Westernizers’.

In today’s Russia, Putinism is making cautious attempts to lean upon some forms of ideological legitimation associated with ‘traditional values’ discourses. In this context, the ruling party ‘United Russia’ proclaimed conservatism its ideology in 2009. The Russian version of conservatism substantiates the anti-Westernism of Russia’s official line, but as an ideology, its nature is too paradoxical to become a long-term ally of the regime. Suslov analyzes these paradoxes and dilemmas by the examples of late-imperial neo-Slavophilism, émigré conservatism, underground right-wing dissident movement, and post-Soviet conservative streaks of thought.

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The author:

Mikhail Suslov, Cand. Sc., Ph. D., is Assistant Professor of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies at the University of Copenhagen. His papers have appeared in Acta Slavica Iaponica, Eurasian Geography and Economics, The Russian Review, Europe-Asia Studies, Geopolitics, Global Affairs, Kritika, Ab Imperio, Revolutionary Russia, Russian History, Demokratizatsiya, Voprosy filosofii, Voprosy kul’turologii, and Forum noveishei vostochnoevropeiskoi istorii i kul’tury. His recent publications include The Post-Soviet Politics of Utopia: Language, Fiction and Fantasy in Modern Russia (I.B. Tauris 2019), co-edited with Per-Arne Bodin, and Contemporary Russian Conservatism: Problems, Paradoxes, and Perspectives (Brill 2019), co-edited with Dmitry Uzlaner.



The author of the foreword:

Dr Mark Bassin is Baltic Sea Professor in the History of Ideas at Södertörn University, Sweden.