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Geopolitics
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Geopolitics Teaching and Worldviews:

Making the Future Generation in Russia
a
Sirke Mäkinen
a
School of Management , Universit y of Tampere , Finland
Published online: 18 Feb 2014.

To cite this article: Sirke Mäkinen (2014) Geopolit ics Teaching and Worldviews: Making t he Fut ure
Generat ion in Russia, Geopolit ics, 19:1, 86-108, DOI: 10.1080/ 14650045.2013.847430

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 Geopolitics, 19:86–108, 2014
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ISSN: 1465-0045 print / 1557-3028 online
DOI: 10.1080/14650045.2013.847430

Geopolitics Teaching and Worldviews: Making

the Future Generation in Russia

SIRKE MÄKINEN
School of Management, University of Tampere, Finland

What worldviews are passed on to students in Russian universi-

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ties? This question can be approached by studying teaching in a

discipline known as Geopolitics, which is offered as part of many
degree programmes in Russian universities. The article makes use
of observations of geopolitics lectures and geopolitics textbooks to
study worldviews, understood as ontological, epistemological, and
methodological assumptions about the geopolitical ‘reality’, the
reality of geopolitics as a discipline, and how this discipline can
and should be ‘discovered’ and studied. Based on the primary
data, a story of the birth and development of geopolitics is con-
structed, and three discourses are identified. These discourses –
geopolitics as a science, geopolitics as context-dependent, and
geopolitics as state-centric – tell us about worldviews that espouse
a positivist epistemology but vary in their degree of essentialism.
Worldviews also inform us about Russia’s geopolitical culture,
which is, in this context, closer to the Westernisers’ position than
that of (Neo)Eurasianism.

INTRODUCTION: GEOPOLITICS IN THE CONTEXT OF

RUSSIAN UNIVERSITIES

What worldviews are passed on to students in Russian universities? What

are the ontological, epistemological, and methodological assumptions on
which university teaching relies? In this article, these questions are stud-
ied in the micro-context of geopolitics teaching in Russian state universities.
Geopolitics is an important context for examining these questions because
geopolitics can be understood as a way of fulfilling the ‘metaphysical’ or

Address correspondence to Sirke Mäkinen, School of Management, 33014 University of

Tampere, Tampere, Finland. E-mail: sirke.makinen@uta.fi

86
 Making the Future Generation in Russia 87

‘theoretical vacuum’ that emerged through the rejection of Marxism as a

state ideology.1 Furthermore, geopolitics can function as the foundation
for the search for a new identity in post-Soviet Russia.2 In the 1990s, the
first university courses in geopolitics were introduced,3 and today these
courses remain part of university education for students in many different
degree programmes in Russia. As previous studies have noted, geopolitics
and political geography were prohibited from becoming academic disci-
plines in the Soviet Union. Geopolitics was characterised as a bourgeois
pseudo-science and associated with Nazi Germany.4 During perestroika
and, finally, with the change of the system, Russian geographers began to
engage with political geography – particularly electoral geography, but also
geopolitics.5
We should not disregard the making of geopolitics in education; accord-
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ingly, we should examine what geopolitics as a university discipline brings to

education and what type of knowledge and geopolitical reality is transmitted
in geopolitics education. That is, we should examine how the ‘theoreti-
cal vacuum’ mentioned above is filled, and what this tells about Russian
geopolitical culture.
Geopolitical education in a micro-context has been studied by Martin
Müller in his ethnographic studies on geopolitical education in IR and
Political Science programmes and in everyday practice at the Moscow State
Institute of International Relations (MGIMO).6 However, the focus in this
study will be on a course explicitly called geopolitics in the degree pro-
grammes of Geography, International Relations, and Political Science in
various universities in Moscow and St. Petersburg. The focus will be on the
ontology, epistemology, and methodology in geopolitics teaching. Specifically,
what are the assumptions about geopolitical reality and the reality of geopol-
itics as a ‘discipline’, how it can be ‘discovered’ or learned, and how it should
be studied. These assumptions will be called worldviews in this study, and
they will be approached by studying the story of the birth and development
of geopolitics as well as the main discourses on geopolitics and geopolitical
knowledge in teaching. I argue that in addition to making us better informed
about the ways in which students in Russia are educated and, particularly,
about the constitution of geopolitics as a discipline, worldviews also tell us
about geopolitical culture in the making. We may talk about geopolitical
socialisation – a process by which, for example, values and beliefs about
relations between Russia and others (in many different contexts, such as sci-
ence) are learned and a geopolitical culture is passed on from generation to
generation.7 In this study, only the ‘input’ level of geopolitical socialisation
will be studied with a focus on the teaching itself (the attempts to learn and
to socialise students) rather than its reception (what students actually learn
and what they absorb from teaching).
The article proceeds as follows. First, I will elaborate the concept of
geopolitical culture as used particularly in the studies of Russian geopolitical
 88 Sirke Mäkinen

culture. Second, I will briefly outline the primary data and methods used in
this study. Third, I will move on to the story of the birth and development
of geopolitics, which serves as an introduction to the teaching of geopolitics
in Russia. Then, I will introduce the three main discourses that I identi-
fied in my data: geopolitics as a science (scientific geopolitics), geopolitics
as context-dependent (contextual geopolitics), and geopolitics as state-
centric (state-centric geopolitics). Geopolitics as a science discourse discusses
geopolitics as scientific theories as opposed to politics and as objective
knowledge as opposed to subjective knowledge. A marker for geopoli-
tics is the possibility of constructing laws, or at least regulations, with the
help of which one can explain and predict developments in world politics.
Geopolitics as a science also refers to what should constitute the ‘core’ of
geopolitical studies; that is, the construction of spatial models. The discourse
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of geopolitics as context-dependent discusses, for example, the relevance

of classical geopolitics and its historical context and, on a more general
level, theories and models as context-dependent or universal. The division
of geopolitics into national schools as presented in the story of the birth
and development of geopolitics is also relevant in the context of this dis-
course. These two discourses highlight an eternal question in Russian (social)
sciences and society at large, the dilemma between the universal and the par-
ticular. The third discourse, geopolitics as state-centric, addresses questions
about the level on which geopolitics should be studied as well as the major
actors in geopolitics.
Finally in the ‘Conclusions’ section, I examine the question of
worldviews and geopolitical culture. Based on these discourses and the story
of the birth and development of Russian geopolitics, I claim that there are
varying degrees of essentialism in the teaching of geopolitics.8 What chal-
lenges the claims of essentialism is that the Russian teachers whose lectures
I attended argued for change and variation in geopolitical models, a contex-
tual nature of knowledge. Therefore, if ‘essentialism is the failure to allow
for variation’,9 teachers cannot be classified under this label. It should also
be noted that teachers openly criticised more essentialist readings of geopol-
itics, such as that of Alexander Dugin. Accordingly, their worldviews tended
to lean toward contextualism/relationalism more than essentialism.
Despite this anti-essentialist ontology, we can see that most teachers
and textbook authors appeared to adhere to a positivist epistemology and,
to a certain extent, a positivist methodology. What emerged was a generally
shared belief in the objectivity of science, an emphasis on the scientific
nature of geopolitics (e.g., the law-like nature of geopolitics),10 and the
general absence of self-reflection. This suggests that non-positivist or crit-
ical approaches are not strong, if they exist at all, in geopolitics teaching
in Russia. Rather, we can talk about neo-classical geopolitics even though
teaching in geopolitics does not represent the realist paradigm only, as usu-
ally argued in IR studies on geopolitics.11 Accordingly, I will argue below that
 Making the Future Generation in Russia 89

previous studies have drawn a partly accurate but overall insufficient picture
of Russian geopolitics and of teaching in the social sciences and humanities
in Russian universities.

STUDIES ON GEOPOLITICAL CULTURE

In a critical theory of geopolitics,12 the study of geopolitics as culture

is usually divided into geopolitical discourses and geopolitical culture.13
Geopolitical discourses are the ‘public articulations and narrative codifica-
tions of the elements that make up a geopolitical culture’.14 Geopolitical
discourses can be divided into formal (e.g., studying geopolitical tradition),
practical (e.g., studying ‘the daily construction and spatialisation of world
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affairs and state interests by foreign policy leaders and elites’),15 and popular
geopolitics (e.g., studying the popular representations of world politics).16
Geopolitical culture may be divided into more formalised geopolitical tra-
ditions (formal or elite geopolitics) and geopolitical imaginations (popular
or ordinary geopolitics). It is an ‘interpretative culture and traditions within
which a state makes sense of its identity and its encounter with the world of
states and codifies a set of strategies for negotiating that encounter’.17
In the context of Russian geopolitics, scholars have studied geopolitical
discourses of political leadership, party politicians, and public opinion as
well as their connections with geopolitical traditions.18 In the late 1990s,
Graham Smith argued that competing representations of Russia were bound
to Eurasia. The most prominent and influential geopolitical discourses were
those of the New Right, Eurasian communists, and Democratic statists, all of
which could be understood as sub-classes of Eurasianism. What was com-
mon to their argumentation was that they shared a sense of unease about
Russia emulating the West. The difference between them could be found
in how much they emphasised Russia’s place within Eurasian civilisation:
was Russia a bridge between Europe and Asia, or should it have been an
alternative to both? A few years later, O’Loughlin, Ó Tuathail, and Kolossov
revised Smith’s formulation and identified Westernisers, Democratic statists,
and Neo-Eurasianists and Neo-communists as ‘more formalised traditions of
geopolitical culture’.19 Although both studies emphasised the key position of
Democratic statism in Russia’s geopolitical culture, in the 2000s, it was no
longer classified under the umbrella of Eurasianism because it had moved
towards emphasising Russia’s European identity and cooperation with the
West.
Although Russian geopolitical discourses and traditions have been
treated more extensively than the context of Eurasianism/Neo-Eurasianism,
there has been some fascination with more extreme forms of geopolitics,
such as those of Alexander Dugin and Alexander Panarin.20 However, as we
 90 Sirke Mäkinen

will see below, teaching a geopolitics course does not follow these lines
but instead attempts to detach from this image of ‘politicised’ geopolitics.
Accordingly, the teaching of geopolitics emphasises the scientific, objective,
and apolitical nature of geopolitics. Natalia Morozova quite rightly criticises
the identification of Russian geopolitics with Eurasianism and vice versa;
both concepts are broader than this.21 While focusing on the geopolitics
developed in universities – the practice of formal geopolitics making – my
interest is in the ontology, epistemology, and methodology of geopolitics
teaching. Specifically, my focus is how geopolitical reality and the reality
of geopolitics as a discipline is perceived and what these worldviews tell
us about geopolitical culture, of which geopolitics teaching is an integral
part. This is not to say that geopolitics teaching would constitute the whole
of geopolitical culture. However, it provides the scholar with a field which
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has not yet been extensively covered by previous research as well as ample
opportunity for making comparisons between different discourses of Russian
geopolitical culture.

ANALYSING TEXTS AS PRIMARY DATA: STORY AND DISCOURSES

The key methodological concepts for studying geopolitics teaching are ‘story’
and ‘discourse’. The story of the birth and development of geopolitics and the
three key discourses in geopolitics teaching that I present below have been
constructed on the basis of my primary data. A story is a ‘metanarrative’,22
which means that it is constructed from many different texts created for
different audiences. No one teacher has necessarily told this story as such,
but the story combines the most common features of the stories presented
by teachers/textbook authors. The story tells us how the disciplinary his-
tory of geopolitics is written,23 and to which traditions and/or geopoliticians
teachers/textbook authors refer. This more descriptive section functions as
an introduction to geopolitics teaching in Russia and discusses the explicit
substance of teaching. Discourses, for their part, more analytically describe
geopolitics as a discipline. Here, the substance is not the main criterion
(what question); rather, the issue is the way in which teachers evaluate and
approach geopolitics as a discipline, geopolitical knowledge, science in gen-
eral, or teaching. Accordingly, discourses are understood as ways of thinking,
believing, evaluating, and enacting a socially recognisable identity.24 When
studying discourses, the meaning of context is crucial, as ‘things mean some-
thing and are “true” only within a specific historical context’.25 There is no
‘“placeless” place to do science’; science is always a part of the culture of a
specific place.26 For their part, worldviews – assumptions on ontology and
epistemology in geopolitics teaching – can be analysed based on the story
and discourses.
 Making the Future Generation in Russia 91

The research is based on a geopolitics teaching corpus compiled by

myself. This corpus consists of a variety of ‘texts’, in the broad sense,
comprising geopolitics lectures transcriptions, geopolitics textbooks (or book
chapters), and interviews with geopolitics teachers. These texts constitute
and construct reality. The lectures were observed and teachers were inter-
viewed in three faculties of the largest university in Russia, Lomonosov
Moscow State University (MGU); in one school of the Moscow State Institute
of International Relations (MGIMO), which is the key university that trains
diplomats; and in two faculties of the second-largest Russian university, St.
Petersburg State University (SPbGU), in 2010–2011. In these faculties, geopol-
itics is offered as part of international relations, political science, or social and
economic geography teaching, and teachers have degrees in history, philos-
ophy, political science, or geography. The data are completed by textbooks
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or articles on geopolitics and course programmes authored by these teach-

ers. In addition, the texts include other Russian textbooks on geopolitics
authored by Moscow-based scholars, all of whom have taught or continue
to teach in Moscow universities.
The lectures were part of geopolitics courses that were either compul-
sory or optional and were offered at the bachelor’s, master’s or specialist
(a five-year programme) level to students ranging from their first year of
studies to their fifth year. This university/faculty decides whether to include
this course in the curriculum and at which level.27 Based on the information
available online in 2010, the decision to offer a separate geopolitics course
was made in at least 27 out of 75 Russian state universities that have the
right to confer degrees in either international relations or political science
and geography. In addition, geopolitics is taught to IR students as part of a
compulsory course on IR theories.
Table 1 presents the primary data for this article, including lec-
tures, interviews, and textbooks from the following university teach-
ers in Moscow and St. Petersburg: Konstantin Aksenov, Irina Busygina,
Boris Isaev, Aleksandr Kabachenko, Konstantin Minyar-Beloruchev, Nikolai
Mironenko, and Irina Zeleneva. In addition, I have used the following four
Russian university textbooks on geopolitics28 : Nikolai Ashenkampf’s and
Svetlana Pogorel’skaya’s Contemporary Geopolitics,29 Kamaludin Gadzhiev’s
Introduction to Geopolitics,30 Nikolai Nartov’s and Vladimir Nartov’s
Geopolitics,31 and Irina Vasilenko’s Geopolitics of Contemporary World.32
In addition to geopolitics, the teachers interviewed for this study deliv-
ered courses in a variety of different subjects to geography, political science,
and IR students. These courses may be in, for example, political philosophy,
comparative politics, political sociology, general history, history of interna-
tional relations, ‘geo-urban studies’ (geourbanistika), and electoral sociology.
Thus, worldviews that can be studied on the basis of the story of the birth and
development of geopolitics and key discourses on geopolitics may provide
insights into teaching in other courses as well.

TABLE 1 Geopolitics teaching corpus
University & Faculty/School
Lomonosov Moscow State
University (MGU),
Geography
Lomonosov Moscow State
University (MGU), Global
Studies
Lomonosov Moscow State
University (MGU), Politics
Moscow State Institute of
92
International Relations
(MGIMO), Politics
St. Petersburg State University
(SPbGU), International
Relations
St. Petersburg State University
(SPbGU), Geography
Baltic State Technological
University VOENMEKh,
Industrial Management and
Communication
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Degree programme Teacher (degree) Lectures33 Textbook/book chapter/article Interview
Geography Prof. Nikolai Mironenko Geopolitics: History of Political Geography and Geopolitics X
(Geography) Formation and (2002) by Kolosov and Mironenko.34
Influence on the World
Autumn 2010
International Relations Senior Lecturer Konstantin Geopolitics Autumn 2010 Article: Russian Geopolitics in the X
Minyar-Beloruchev Context of Globalisation: Problems
(History) of Methodology (2008), conference
abstract: Global Geopolitical Space:
Structural Analysis (2009) and a
course programme: Geopolitics
(2009).35
Politics Docent Aleksandr Geopolitics Autumn 2010 — X
Kabachenko
(Philosophy)
Politics or International Prof. Irina Busygina Geopolitics: Theories and — X
Relations (Geography, Politics) Applied Analysis Spring
2011
International Relations Prof. Irina Zeleneva Geopolitics Spring 2010 Geopolitics and Geostrategy of Russia. —
(History) XVIII – First Half of the XIX Century
(2005) by Zeleneva. Russian School
of Geopolitics (2008) by Yakunin,
Zelenev, and Zeleneva.36
Geography or Political Docent Konstantin Geopolitics Spring 2010 Geopolitical Representations of the X
Psychology Aksenov (Geography) Humankind by Aksenov in
Economic, Social and Political
Geography of the World. Regions
and Countries (2002) edited by
Lavrov and Kaledin.37
Politics Prof. Boris Isaev — Geopolitics 2006 38 X
 Making the Future Generation in Russia 93

I do not take a stance on whether geopolitics is a ‘real discipline’ or

not39 ; rather, I attempt to understand how given actors see geopolitics and
what understanding they transmit to their students, either from the pages of
their textbooks or face-to-face in the lecture room.

STORY OF THE BIRTH AND DEVELOPMENT OF GEOPOLITICS

Temporal Periods and National Schools – Starting with Pre-History
Narrating the story of the birth and development of geopolitics involves
some sort of classification, which may be paradigmatic but usually takes
the form of temporal periodisation – dividing its history into, for example,
pre-history, classical geopolitics, geopolitics between the First and Second
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World Wars or post-war geopolitics.40 Paradigmatic classification can be per-

formed by dividing geopolitics into two schools, realism and idealism.41 The
very first ideological roots of geopolitics are sought from Ancient Greece
and Rome.42 However, Russian scholars do not necessarily give all credit
to Europeans when constructing the pre-history of geopolitics; they also
refer to Ancient China and India, the Arab East (in particular, the histo-
rian Abd-al Rahman Ibn-Khaldun), and Rus in the Middle Ages.43 More
recent roots are identified in the ideas of German philosophers such as
Kant, Hegel, Humboldt, and, particularly, Ritter as the founder of geograph-
ical determinism.44 The history of political philosophy is thus seen through
the lens of geopolitics, which is understood as the relationship or interac-
tion between space and politics. Thus, the ‘pre-history’ of geopolitics – a
time when geopolitical ideas were in existence but not yet systemised –
is represented as a chronological story with different phases, each bringing
something new to geopolitical thought and developing our knowledge of the
geopolitical.
Some teachers focus solely on the period of what is called ‘scientific
geopolitics’, the period beginning in the late nineteenth and early twentieth
century and continuing today. However, even those who address ‘scientific
geopolitics’ do not deny the existence of ‘geopolitical ideas’ before the
existence of geopolitics as a ‘science’.

The Discipline of Geopolitics – Classical Geopolitics and Its Founding

Fathers
The turn of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century is gen-
erally considered by scholars in Russia and elsewhere to mark the time
at which geopolitics as a discipline was ‘born’. Its birth was enabled by
external factors, such as the expansion of European great powers, the emer-
gence of a global market, rivalry between European great powers, and the
 94 Sirke Mäkinen

rise of the capitalist form of production.45 This development resonates with

what John Agnew has argued were the prerequisites for modern geopolitical
imagination; what was required, Agnew suggests, was a global gaze, the
ability to see the world as a whole.46
Classical geopolitics is represented as comprising different ‘national’
schools, which usually include the Anglo-American or maritime school
(Mahan, Mackinder, Spykman), the German47 or continental school (Ratzel,
Kjellen, Haushofer, Schmitt), and the French school (Vidal de la Blache).
Most teachers observed in this study spoke against the geographical deter-
minism prevalent in classical geopolitics and stressed the human factor, thus
identifying themselves more with the French tradition of geopolitics than
with the Anglo-American or German schools.
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Post-War Geopolitics
If we move further along in the story, we will arrive at the period of post-war
geopolitics. French geopolitics theorists writing immediately after the war,
such as Jean Gottmann and Jacque Ancel, and French geopolitics scholars in
the 1970s, particularly Yves Lacoste, are introduced. In addition, most teach-
ers and textbook authors introduce students to the work of Isaiah Bowman,
Saul Cohen and Immanuel Wallerstein. European New Right geopolitics, rep-
resented by such theorists as Jean Thiriart and Alain de Benoist, are also
covered to some extent, at least in terms of their impact on Aleksandr
Dugin. Among contemporary political geographers, Peter Taylor, Geoffrey
Parker, and John Agnew are most often referenced. Particular attention is
paid to Samuel Huntington’s and Francis Fukuyama’s theses of the 1990s
and to Brzezinski’s ideas about the future of Russia.48 Among the teachers
and textbook authors, Huntington’s clash of civilisations thesis gathers both
reserved understanding and criticism. Critics of this thesis may, in fact, argue
for a civilisational geopolitics of their own but condemn such a notion from
Huntington.49
The texts under study here address Fukuyama’s thesis through the
concept of Mondialism, which is represented as an idea about the world
without borders under the world government.50 Kissinger and Brzezinski
are considered leading proponents of Mondialism. It is sometimes seen
as part of a conspiracy theory, the West against Russia – that is, a repre-
sentation of American values as universal and the imposition of these on
Russia.51

Russian Geopolitics as Part of the Story

The roots of Russian geopolitical thought are sought in the Middle Ages and
in the idea of Moscow as a Third Rome. However, most teachers and authors
 Making the Future Generation in Russia 95

begin their story about Russian geopolitics in the nineteenth century. The
birth of (proto-) geopolitical ideas is connected with the search for its identity
and destiny, place, and role in the world and with the social philosophical
schools of Slavophiles and Zapadniks.
The emphasis on the variety of approaches within the Russian school
of geopolitics should be noted. Consequently, Eurasianism, which is most
often mentioned in Western studies on Russian geopolitics, is represented as
only one of these approaches.52 In addition to Eurasianists (who are some-
times seen as representatives of continental-style geopolitics), Danilevskii’s
civilisational geopolitics and Semenov-Tyan-Shanskii’s French-style search
for the synthesis of the Land and Sea are routinely introduced in geopol-
itics teaching. In addition, ideas from military studies by D. A. Milyutin
and E. A. Vandam, A. A. Yazykov, and L. I. Mechnikov may be introduced.
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Among more recent philosophers, Nikolai Gumilev, who is usually seen as

bridging the divide between Eurasianists and Neo-Eurasianists, is most often
referenced.
As part of their story of the development of geopolitics, teachers and
textbook authors occasionally present different classifications of the schools
of geopolitical thought in contemporary Russia (Neo-Eurasianists/National
Bolsheviks, Isolationalists, Nationalists, Westernisers), but these do not differ
significantly from those published outside of Russia.
One author is sure to be mentioned by all teachers and textbook
authors: Aleksandr Dugin and his book Osnovy geopolitiki (Foundations
of Geopolitics). It is likely the best-known textbook among university stu-
dents in Russia,53 and Dugin is the best-known ‘geopolitician’ outside Russia.
Accordingly, Dugin’s ideas have been widely discussed in the literature.54
Among the teachers whose lectures I attended in Moscow and St. Petersburg,
the attitude towards Dugin, if not always explicitly negative, was at least
reserved. Some teachers express their rejection openly: ‘His political ideol-
ogy is masked as a textbook . . . . It is a nationalistic, ideological construction.
Scientific ideas are deliberatively used for the justification of his own ideo-
logical constructions.’55 Among the textbook authors, the Nartovs have the
most positive evaluation of Dugin and see him as arguing against liberal
Westernism and narrow-ethnic nationalism and for national ideocracy and a
continental Empire.56
Bassin and Aksenov have argued that the deepest roots of Russian
geopolitics lie in Russian Eurasianism, German Geopolitik, and Mackinder’s
heartland theory.57 All of these approaches were introduced in the sam-
ple of geopolitics teaching examined in this study, but teachers also
proved to be considerably influenced by the French school of geopoli-
tics. When they introduced Russian geopolitics to university students, they
spoke more widely about its history rather than merely emphasising the
Eurasianist element.
 96 Sirke Mäkinen

GEOPOLITICS AS A SCIENCE
Science vs. Ideology
Russian teachers generally establish a clear boundary between theory/
science and practice/ideology.58 For example, ‘Geopolitics in the system of
knowledge functions as a theory which reflects on and is aware of regular
(zakonomernye) connections between geographical conditions and politics,
and as an ideology, that is, a means which justifies achievements, imple-
mentation, safeguarding, strengthening and the growth of power’ (emphasis
mine).59 Konstantin Aksenov argues that the term geopolitics itself actually
refers to three different fields: ‘scientific’ geopolitics, practical geopolitics,
and/or geopolitical ideas/ideologies.60 Scientific geopolitics may involve the
study of applied geopolitics or geopolitical ideas, but otherwise it has noth-
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ing to do with them: ‘Science . . . creates theories and explanatory models

and can even predict the development of these processes’, Aksenov claims.
Mironenko, also a geographer, argues that scientific geopolitics, as theoretical
knowledge, should be free of any ideology or political bias.61 Science is con-
sidered to be ‘uncontaminated’ by the world ‘surrounding’ it. Consequently,
a scientific, objective geopolitics with explanatory and predictive abilities is,
or should be, what is ‘created’ in universities.

Theory vs. Practice

Emphasising the difference between the objectivity of scientific politics and
the subjectivity of geopolitical practice and politics62 does not mean that
teachers do not recognise the interaction between geopolitical theories and
geopolitical practice. The relationship between the practical and the scien-
tific is represented in two ways. First, to stress the importance of scientific
geopolitics, it is argued that the link between scientific geopolitical models
and their application in practice has always been strong. The second way
is connected to the first, as one teacher noted: ‘Geopolitical theories have
been a powerful instrument for influencing world politics. Geopolitical sci-
ence has had very serious consequences for the history of humankind, at
least in the 20th century’.63 That is, even though the link between science
and practice is acknowledged, it is suggested that science cannot be blamed
for all of the consequences of applying the models to practice. Science is
based on ‘abstract logic’ which is neutral, objective, and apolitical: ‘To con-
vict ideology in Nuremberg – geopolitics was part of the ideology of the
Third Reich, sharing in the responsibility for the tragic events of WWII, the
human victims and expansion policy – ideology and concrete political activ-
ity were rightly condemned, but why prohibit science along with these?’64
This idea is connected to the discussion of one of the most significant and
controversial figures in geopolitics, Karl Haushofer, and his responsibility.
For example, ‘Haushofer first of all was not a Nazi, even though he helped
 Making the Future Generation in Russia 97

to write Mein Kampf . . . . He was not a racist, not an anti-Semite’.65 A

textbook by Kolosov and Mironenko emphasises the ‘difference of principle
between Ratzelian materialism, which was cherished by Haushofer, and the
ideological world view of National Socialism which was based on a false idea
of racial supremacy’.66 That is, Haushofer’s connection with Hitler and other
Nazis is acknowledged, but, at the same time, it is argued that Haushofer did
not share the same goals as Nazis; he was a scholar, working with theoretical
models. However, some teachers showed less understanding for Haushofer,
as revealed in such statements as ‘Haushofer openly cooperated with Nazis
. . . he was too flexible and modified his concepts by ideological orders/on
ideological demand and not based on the analysis of the objective reality’.67
Finally, there appeared to be some hesitation among the teachers in this
study regarding the question of whether those who make science can be sep-
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arated from science itself – that is, whether the maker can be distinguished
from the making.

Laws and Regularities – Geopolitics as a Natural Science?

Although Russian geopolitics teachers wish to distinguish themselves from
classical geopolitics and, particularly, from its geographical determinism,
there seems to be a relatively strong belief in what they call the ‘laws of
geopolitics’, which are believed to govern the relations between states or
civilisations. Geopolitics can almost be seen as approaching a natural sci-
ences discipline, with its laws, regularities, and possibilities for prediction
that it claims for itself. John Agnew has recognised a similar tendency to
naturalise knowledge claims in the political geography of the early twenti-
eth century, a ‘tendency to want to explain human and social phenomena
. . . in terms of natural processes’.68 This distinction was accomplished by
separating ‘the scientific claim from the subject position of the particular
writer’ and employing a ‘preference for the use of arguments drawn from
the natural sciences to explain social and political phenomena’.69 In a similar
fashion, when studying geopolitical education at the Moscow State Institute
of International Affairs (MGIMO), Martin Müller argues that today ‘the struc-
ture of arguments in lectures also relies heavily on seemingly objective facts
and figures to support conclusions’ and concludes that ‘this way of reasoning
shares many similarities with the natural sciences’.70
The natural-sciences-style argumentation in today’s Russian geopolitics
is close to what has been called ‘regularity determinism’, which is typical of
social-science positivism.71 It is question of positivist explanation, which is
reliant on laws and linked to prediction: ‘Without a knowledge of regularities
and recurring patterns in the world, we would have no reason to expect
particular things to happen at particular times’.72 Accordingly, part of the
geopolitics-as-science discourse claims that there should be geopolitical laws,
tendencies, or regularities that make prediction possible.
 98 Sirke Mäkinen

The strongest belief in the law-like nature of geopolitics is expressed

by the textbook authors Nartov and Nartov. The most important of these
laws is the law of dualism, which is manifest in the ‘geographical structure
of the planet’ and the ‘historical typology of civilisations’.73 This is an eter-
nal characteristic of geopolitics.74 Thus, Nartov and Nartov follow classical
geopolitics (or, in the contemporary Russian context, a Dugin-style geopol-
itics) in which the dualism of the land and the sea is key and determines
social relations, the political system, and foreign policy.

Geopolitical Models Structuring the World

Geopolitics as a science is understood as geopolitical models, models of how
space and power is divided on the world level, and how the world is struc-
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tured. In addition to introducing the models of classical geopolitics, such

as Mackinder’s heartland/inner crescent/outer crescent model, Haushofer’s
pan-regions and their peripheries, or more recent geopolitical models such
as the model by Saul Cohen’s rimland-heartland theory or Wallerstein’s
geopolitical cycles, teachers may also introduce their own models. For exam-
ple, in Minyar-Beloruchev’s geopolitical model, the contemporary world is
divided into three ‘dimensions’ that include five spaces. The dimensions are
1) the surface of the globe and, within it, the two spaces of land and sea;
2) the outer shell of the globe and, within it, the two spaces of air and
space; and 3) a virtual dimension that is equated with information space.
The task of geopolitics is to study all of these dimensions and spaces. The
first two dimensions are considered to exist objectively, whereas the third
dimension is, according to Minyar-Beloruchev, ‘created by humankind’.75
It should be noted that the ’third dimension’, virtual space or the power
of information to make geopolitics, is recognised by all teachers and text-
book authors but is treated most comprehensively by Irina Vasilenko in her
textbook. According to Vasilenko, the information revolution has changed
the nature of geopolitics and has produced a new, virtual dimension of
space; therefore, all of the norms and rules of geopolitical fights must be
re-considered.76
Irina Zeleneva (SPbGU) proposes her geostrategic analysis model,
which is intended to represent a stand against the realism of the twenti-
eth century and for the idealism of the twenty-first century. A new stage of
human development (new kinds of weapons, new information technologies,
regionalisation, global thinking) has moved political thought to a qualita-
tively new thinking of geopolitical realities. Geostrategic analysis takes as
its starting point the ‘geostrategic interests of humankind as the boundaries
between politics, culture, finances, national security and ecology are with-
ered away’.77 Zeleneva uses the concept of geostrategy instead of broadening
the concept of geopolitics, aiming to imbue geostrategy with new meanings
that, she claims, have no direct link with military theory.78
 Making the Future Generation in Russia 99

The model for studying geopolitics offered by Irina Busygina (MGIMO)

differs from the models suggested by other teachers/textbook authors.
Accordingly, she is not satisfied with the selection of geopolitics textbooks
available in Russia. Busygina believes that one should study institutions and
how institutions have changed because ‘the change in institutions gives us
possibilities to see how spatial factors are manifested in the foreign policy
behaviour of states’. The key question is whether behaviour (for example,
a country’s foreign policy) is rational when taking into consideration spa-
tial factors (such as physical and human resources, neighbouring countries,
dispersion of population, and the territorial size of the country).79
The discourse of geopolitics as a science leads us toward a worldview
according to which we can have access to objective knowledge, and the
world can be modelled and thus its future predicted.
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CONTEXTUAL GEOPOLITICS
Classical Geopolitics and Context
All teachers and most textbook authors stress the historical context in which
the ideas of ‘classical geopolitics’ were created and note that these ideas
are not suitable for the current situation. Accordingly, they see the temporal
context as significant when evaluating the truth value of geopolitical models.
Gadzhiev notes that ‘the main postulates of traditional geopolitics, first of
all geographical determinism, in one way or another were applicable to the
realities of the Euro-(Western)-Centrist world. . . . In regard to the contem-
porary world, . . . these principles are out of date’.80 For his part, Mironenko
argues that, for example, ‘the “laws” formulated by Ratzel reflected the reality
of international relations at the end of the 19th century and the type of world
order in which power and richness of state was derivative from the size of
the territory that it controlled’.81 Explicit universalism in geopolitical models
is criticised particularly by Minyar-Beloruchev. These models were simply an
‘idealised and idealistic vision of the way our world should be’, even though
they claim ‘universal applicability’ (emphasis mine).82 To a certain extent, the
teachers in this study seem to acknowledge the situatedness of knowledge
in their thinking on geopolitical ideas.
In particular, the use of the ideas of classical geopolitics to solve or
predict modern problems is criticised, including criticism levelled at repre-
sentatives of what I have termed civilisational (deterministic) geopolitics – a
minority in geopolitics teaching represented by two textbooks (Nartov
and Nartov & Vasilenko). These writers partly derive solutions for today’s
problems from the past, including the ideas of the ‘Russian geopolitical
school’ and, particularly, Danilevskii’s civilisational geopolitics. The notion of
civilisation is treated as a factor that determines the place and role of Russia.
It emphasises the human factors (culture, religion, administrative system) that
 100 Sirke Mäkinen

contribute to becoming a world leader and conquering space, whether ‘con-

crete’ or ‘virtual’. To these authors, geopolitics is about power, conquering
space, and gaining hegemony – and these are the directions in which Russia
should be heading. Accordingly, there is a nationalist empire-building logic
inherent in this determinism.
It is not only the use of Danilevskii’s and Eurasianists’ ideas today
which is criticised, but also the ideas themselves. For example, Eurasianists
saw the influence of the Mongol-Tatars on Russia as something positive,
but Mironenko sees this period as a negative break from Europe and its
development.83 He also argues that the ‘idea of the existence of a whole
Eurasian nation (natsiya), developed on the basis of the united idea of
Orthodoxy, and much later the idea of the Soviet people, were nothing more
than ideal images’.84 Gadzhiev notes that, methodologically, Eurasianists dif-
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fered only marginally from the ‘ideological political orientations of Fascism

and Bolshevism’ of that time and were close to National Bolshevism.85

Universal or Particular Knowledge – The Meaning of the Spatial and

Cultural Context
Although all of the teachers considered in this study more or less agree
on the need to consider the temporal context of the meaning of the laws
of geopolitics, not all agree that their applicability depends on the spatial
and cultural context. This lack of concern with spatial context among some
teachers is related to their understanding of science. Science, they argue,
cannot be contextual in the sense that theories and models would only be
applicable or true in a specific spatial context. Geopolitical theories, as scien-
tific theories, should be universal and applicable worldwide. This is also an
argument against introducing (classical) geopolitics by national schools and
by their geographical origin because this would mean losing the ‘main thing,
the link with the internal logic of the development of ideas – how this logic
was used in practice and how it changed the destinies of humankind’.86 This
is manifest also in the discussion of the ‘Russian school of geopolitics’. These
teachers do not see how a Russian school of geopolitics could even exist or
produce the type of models or theories that would have ‘global significance’
(Busygina, MGIMO; Aksenov, SPbGU).
Most teachers, however, stress the significance of the Russian school
of geopolitics and have studied Russian geopolitical thought specifically.
The Russian school, past and present, is covered most extensively by
Minyar-Beloruchev in the geopolitics courses he teaches to IR students at
MGU; geographer Mironenko (MGU); political scientist Isaev, in his textbook;
political philosopher Irina Vasilenko in her textbook and historian Irina
Zeleneva, in her book Geopolitics and Geostrategy of Russia and her co-
authored book Russian School of Geopolitics and in the geopolitics courses
she teaches in the IR Faculty at SPbGU.87 In Vasilenko’s textbook the
 Making the Future Generation in Russia 101

emphasis on Russian geopolitics is also connected with the claim of the

specific nature of civilisations such as the Russian civilisation. For example,
she explains the difference between the continental and maritime schools
through a juxtaposition of ‘territorial ideas’, a unique territorial idea of each
people/nation on one hand vs. worldwide cultural uniformity on the other.88
However, the Russian civilisation and what it conveys may become the new
universal. For Vasilenko, Russia is a chosen nation with a predetermined
path. The path is there, ready to lead the Russian people to the bright future,
if only they had the sense to follow it: ‘Today the national and geopolitical
re-birth of Russia is tied up with the re-birth of a national idea as a mes-
sianic idea, which means a universal idea (vselenskaya). Can the Russian
people understand its national calling as universal and all-human, interpret
and safeguard values of the Orthodox culture as all-human?’89
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Contextual geopolitics discourse informs us about a worldview which

represents knowledge as dependent on the temporal context, but which
varies on the question whether knowledge should also be taken as spatially
and culturally conditioned or not.

STATE-CENTRIC GEOPOLITICS

At what level should geopolitics be studied? Who are portrayed as the (dom-
inant) geopolitical actors? Most teachers and textbook authors adhere to
a state-centric view, which is unsurprising given the argument made by
some, such as Solovyev, that state-centrism has been characteristic of Russian
geopolitics.90 The teachers in this study also expressed the view that geopol-
itics should be studied at the national level (within states, internal politics,
and at the micro level) and at the international level (between states, external
politics, and at the macro level).91 Geopolitical models may discuss political
unions or even civilisations above the state level, but they do not refrain
from the thesis of the state as the dominant actor. This is not to say that
the teachers would not recognise any other actors, but they see states as the
dominant actors in the past, present, and future.
However, state-centrism does not tell the whole story of geopolitics teach-
ing. Two teachers take a clear leap from the state-centric view: Irina Busygina
from MGIMO and Alexander Kabachenko from MGU. Busygina does this by
introducing and (at least implicitly) arguing for the global governance model,
and Kabachenko does this by stressing the existence of different types of
geopolitical subjects. To Kabachenko, potentially all political actors may be
geopolitical subjects. What makes actors geopolitical is that their action has
an influence on two or more regions of the world.92 Accordingly, geopolitical
subjects might be individuals, such as leaders of countries or of organisa-
tions, such as Al-Qaeda or Greenpeace.93 In geopolitics, one can study the
goal of their action, how this action is organised, and their organisational,
 102 Sirke Mäkinen

ideological, intellectual, moral, and spiritual resources.94 Overall, ‘geopolitics

is a public activity which is targeted at achieving, keeping and using power
and influence in the global society’.95
State-centrism also involves the border between the internal and the
external and between domestic policy and foreign policy. Irina Busygina
discusses this distinction in connection with the global governance model,
which highlights the need to take into account both the internal and external
when discussing geopolitics. However, the emphasis in the lectures is gen-
erally on the foreign policy of states and the rationality of foreign policy, as
mentioned above.96
State-centrism discourse emphasises a realist state-dominated world-
view.
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CONCLUSION: FROM THE STORY AND DISCOURSES IN

GEOPOLITICS TEACHING TOWARDS WORLDVIEWS IN
GEOPOLITICAL CULTURE

What kind of worldviews can be identified? That is, how are ontology
and epistemology represented, what is the (geopolitical) reality or reality
of geopolitics, and how can or should we learn about it? Most of the geopol-
itics teachers in this study appear to share a positivist epistemology, and to a
certain extent, a positivist methodology – as does, for example, the majority
of the IR community in the US.97 There is a strong belief in the objectivity of
the social sciences, and, to a lesser extent, a belief in the existence of laws
or regularities similar to natural sciences and a belief that, based on these
laws, the future can be predicted. Russian teachers at least partly shared
a natural attitude that was typical of classical geopolitics in the West; in Ó
Tuathail’s words, ‘The world was taken to be a reality that “existed out there”
separated from the consciousness of the intellectual’.98 Russian scholars do
not necessarily want to recognise the impossibility of pure objectivity, of the
researcher having some impact on the ‘reality’ that she perceives. However,
we should note the reservation that the conclusion on positivism is true in
the context of geopolitics teaching; other approaches may be studied and
applied in other courses in the degree programmes of geography, IR, and
politics.
Despite positivist epistemology, essentialism is not strong among
geopolitics teachers. Knowledge is considered, to a certain degree, to
be context-bound; it may change and vary from one context to another.
Accordingly, teachers argue that the models of classical geopolitics cannot
necessarily be adopted as such in the contemporary world, and they criti-
cise those Russian scholars who attempt to explain the world using models
from classical geopolitics. Accordingly, it cannot be denied that there is a
more essentialist and determinist strand in Russian geopolitics teaching. This
 Making the Future Generation in Russia 103

is manifested in Dugin’s writings as well as in two of the textbooks studied

here (Nartov; and Nartov and Vasilenko).
As mentioned above, most Russian geopolitics teachers do not appear to
think of their subject as addressing ‘permanent realities of the earth rooted
in an imagined earth of natural laws, eternal binary opposition, perpetual
struggles against dangerous rivals’,99 as classical geopolitics is characterised
in Western critical geopolitics scholarship. In the interviews, I discovered that
some teachers were familiar with the critical study of geopolitics (particularly
studies by John Agnew), even though this approach was not recognised or
applied in the teaching of geopolitics.100 Consequently, rather than taking this
scholarship as their guide, Russian teachers attempt to re-work the models of
classical geopolitics by stressing the temporal context. They see the models
of classical geopolitics to have been at least partly applicable at the time they
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were conceived; today, new models are required that represent modern real-
ities. This approach is linked to what has been termed ‘neoclassical geopol-
itics’, e.g., by Nick Megoran, which comprises geopoliticians who ‘locate
themselves within the Mackinder-Haushofer-Spykman tradition but who cre-
atively rework it with reference to changed social, economic, political and
cultural factors’.101 Furthermore, it should be noted that in Russian geopolitics
teaching, it is always a question of what has been termed formal and practical
geopolitics102 – the study of the geopolitical tradition or practices (discourses)
of the statecraft. Popular geopolitics, such as studying geopolitics in cartoons,
films, or everyday life, does not figure into teaching at all.
The worldviews of Russian teachers vary between those argu-
ing for the universal nature of knowledge and those arguing for the
particular/contextual nature of knowledge, as the discourses already implied.
Teachers often represent geopolitics as national schools and thus introduce
spatial and cultural variation within this single discipline. However, repre-
senting different national schools, including the ‘Russian school’, should not
lead us to think that these teachers would argue for Russia’s uniqueness or
for Russia’s special path or isolation in science – or in world politics, even
though the latter was not explicitly addressed in this paper. Accordingly, if
we consider geopolitical culture to involve geopolitical traditions or imagina-
tions about Russia’s place in the world and its relations with other states, then
we can see that for most teachers/textbook authors, Russia (and Russian sci-
ence) is part of world-level, universal development and requires cooperation
rather than isolation. Accordingly, using the terms usually applied when char-
acterising Russian geopolitical traditions, we can say that most lecturers were
closer to Westernisers than to Neo-Eurasianists or were between Westernisers
and ‘softer’ forms of Eurasianism, as described by Smith in 1999 (democratic
statism) or Tsygankov in 2003 (economic Eurasianism). However, in the text-
books, we recognised two examples of those who advocated Russia’s special
path and were convinced of its uniqueness or even its moral and intellectual
superiority and were closer to Neo-Eurasianisim. By studying textbooks and
 104 Sirke Mäkinen

observing and interviewing teachers, we can obtain a better view of different

worldviews than we would have by choosing only one of these methods to
acquire information. From looking at textbooks only, one would perhaps be
inclined to define Russia’s geopolitical culture as more hostile to the external
world and as more nationalist, expansionalist, and predisposed to turn in on
itself. By observing lectures only in Moscow and St. Petersburg, we would
likely forget about this orientation and assume that all teaching is as ‘liberal’
and in favour of openness towards the external world.
This ‘liberal’ orientation is also manifested in that some teachers quite
explicitly want to express their anti-Soviet agenda/dissidence. They want to
convey to students, who do not necessarily have direct experience of the
Soviet Union, what it was like to live in the Soviet Union. They want to
tell them about the ‘insanities’ and atrocities of the Soviet system. However,
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this criticism against those in power (vlast’) is not only aimed at the Soviet
system but, to a certain extent, extends to the current system. Thus, we may
talk about an implicit curriculum in which criticism towards those in power
is encouraged. On the one hand, this may not be aligned with the current
aspirations of the Russian leadership to strengthen ‘patriotic upbringing’ at all
levels of education. On the other hand, this curriculum may well contribute
to the elite’s call for training individuals who would turn their backs on the
paternalist culture of the Soviet period − a call that has been prevalent in the
modernisation discourse within the Russian political elite in the twenty-first
century.103 According to this discourse, Russians should be able to take their
destinies into their own hands. They should be transformed into individuals
with responsibility, initiative, creativity, and effectiveness. In this discourse,
modernisation is instrumental in achieving the main goal of the elite – turn-
ing Russia into the undisputed world leader, economically and culturally.
However, these questions as part of the constitution of Russian geopolitical
culture call for further study.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am grateful to Kaarina Aitamurto, Anni Kangas, Katja Koikkalainen, Saara

Ratilainen, Suvi Salmenniemi, Richard Sakwa, and the three anonymous
reviewers of Geopolitics for valuable comments and productive criticism
on earlier drafts. The earlier drafts of this article were also presented at
ICCEES in Stockholm 2010 and at ISA in Montreal 2011. I also wish to
thank the lecturers who provided the opportunity to attend their classes and
those lecturers and administrators who facilitated my fieldwork in Russian
universities. In addition, I would like to thank my research assistant Julia
Simpanen. Work on this article was supported by the Academy of Finland
(project no. 132839), the University of Tampere, and the Finnish Centre of
Excellence in Russian Studies.
 Making the Future Generation in Russia 105

NOTES

1. Mikhail Epstein, ‘Ideas against Ideocracy: The Platonic Drama of Russian Thought’, in Costica
Bradatan and Serguei Oushakine (eds.), Marx’s Shadow: Knowledge, Power, and Intellectuals in Eastern
Europe and Russia (Langham: Lexington Books 2010) p. 23; Alexander Sergounin, ‘IR at a Crossroads’, in
Arlene B. Tickner and Ole Waever (eds.), International Relations Scholarship around the World. Worlding
beyond the West (Abingdon: Routledge 2009) p. 225.
2. E.g., Graham Smith, ‘The Masks of Proteus: Russia, Geopolitical Shift and the New Eurasianism’,
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 24 (1999) pp. 481–500.
3. Mark Bassin and Konstantin E. Aksenov, ‘Mackinder and the Heartland Theory in Post-Soviet
Geopolitical Discourse’, Geopolitics 11 (2006) pp. 99–118.
4. Vladimir Kolosov, Geopoliticheskoe polozhenie Rossii: predstavleniia i realnost’ (Moskva: Art-
Kur’er 2000) p. 20.
5. Vladimir Kolossov, ‘American Geography and the Rise of Political Geography in Russia’,
GeoJournal 59 (2004) pp. 59–62.
6. Martin Müller, ‘Education and the Formation of Geopolitical Subjects’, International Political
Downloaded by [Tampere University] at 03:28 04 September 2014

Sociology 5 (2011) pp. 1–17; Martin Müller, Making Great Power Identities in Russia. An Ethnographic
Discourse Analysis of Education at a Russian Elite University (Zürich: LIT 2009); Martin Müller, ‘Situating
Identities: Enacting and Studying Europe at a Russian Elite University’, Millennium – Journal of
International Studies 37/3 (2008) pp. 3–25.
7. Reformulated from Verba’s understanding of political socialisation and political culture. Sidney
Verba, ‘Comparative Political Culture’, in Lucian W. Pye and Sidney Verba, Political Culture and Political
Development (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1965) p. 515.
8. On civilisational debates and their essentialism, see Andrei Tsygankov, ‘Self and Other in
International Relations Theory: Learning from Russian Civilizational Debates’, International Studies Review
10/4 (Dec. 2008) pp. 762–775.
9. Stephan Fuchs, Against Essentialism. A Theory of Culture and Society (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press 2001) p. 15.
10. Cf. Marlène Laruelle, ‘The Discipline of Culturology: A New ‘Ready-Made Thought’ for Russia’,
Diogenes 204 (2004) pp. 21–36.
11. Marina M. Lebedeva, ‘International Relations Studies in the USSR/Russia: Is there a Russian
National School of IR Studies?’, Global Society 18/3 (2004) pp. 263–278; Viatcheslav Morozov, ‘Obsessed
with Identity: The IR in Post-Soviet Russia’, Journal of International Relations and Development
12/2 (2009) pp. 200–205; Andrei P. Tsygankov and Pavel Tsygankov, ‘A National Ideology and IR
Theory: Three Incarnations of the ‘Russian Idea’’, European Journal of International Relations 16/4
(2010) pp. 663–686; Alexander Sergounin, ‘IR at a Crossroads’, in Arlene B. Tickner and Ole Waever (eds.),
International Relations Scholarship around the World. Worlding beyond the West (Abingdon: Routledge
2009) pp. 223–241.
12. E.g., Gearóid Ó Tuathail and John Agnew, ‘Geopolitics and Discourse: Practical Geopolitical
Reasoning in American Foreign Policy’, Political Geography 11/2 (1992); Gearóid Ó Tuathail, Critical
Geopolitics (London: Routledge 1996); Gearóid Ó Tuathail and Simon Dalby, ‘Introduction’, in Gearóid Ó
Tuathail and Simon Dalby (eds.), Rethinking Geopolitics (London: Routledge 1998) pp. 1–15.
13. See Gearóid Ó Tuathail, ‘Geopolitical Structures and Cultures: Towards Conceptual Clarity in
the Critical Study of Geopolitics’, in Lasha Tchantouridze (ed.), Geopolitics. Global Problems and Regional
Concerns (Winnipeg: Centre for Defence and Security Studies 2004) pp. 75–102; John O´Loughlin, Gearóid
Ó Tuathail, and Vladimir Kolossov, ‘Russian Geopolitical Culture and Public Opinion: The Masks of
Proteus Revisited’, Transactions, Institute of British Geographers 30 (2006) pp. 322–335.
14. O´Loughlin et al., ‘Russian Geopolitical Culture’ (note 13) p. 324.
15. John O´Loughlin, Gearóid Ó Tuathail, and Vladimir Kolossov, ‘A ‘Risky Westward Turn’? Putin’s
9–11 Script and Ordinary Russians’, Europe-Asia Studies 56/1 (Jan. 2004) pp. 3–34.
16. See, e.g., Gearóid Ó Tuathail, ‘Theorizing Practical Geopolitical Reasoning: The Case of the
United States’ Response to the War in Bosnia’, Political Geography 21 (2002) pp. 601–628.
17. O’Loughlin et al., ‘A ‘Risky Westward Turn’?’ (note 15) p. 5.
18. E.g., O’Loughlin et al., ‘A ‘Risky Westward Turn’?’ (note 15); O’Loughlin et al., ‘Russian
Geopolitical Culture’ (note 13); Sirke Mäkinen, Russian Geopolitical Visions and Argumentation
(Tampere: Tampere University Press 2008).
 106 Sirke Mäkinen

19. See Smith (note 2); A. P. Tsygankov, ‘Mastering Space in Eurasia: Russian Geopolitical Thinking
after the Soviet Break-Up’, Communist and Post-Communist Studies 35 (2003) pp. 101–127; O´Loughlin
et al., ‘Russian Geopolitical Culture’ (note 13); Eduard G. Solovyev, ‘Geopolitics in Russia – Science or
Vocation?’, Communist and Post-Communist Studies 37 (2004) pp. 85–96.
20. In particular, excellent studies of Marlene Laruelle, Russian Eurasianism. An Ideology of Empire
(Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press 2008); ‘Larger, Higher, Farther North . . . Geographical
Metanarratives of the Nation in Russia’, Eurasian Geography and Economics 53/5 (2012) pp. 557–574.
21. Natalia Morozova, ‘Geopolitics, Eurasianism and Russian Foreign Policy Under Putin’,
Geopolitics 14 (2009) pp. 667–686.
22. On political narratives, see Shaul R. Shenhav, ‘Thin and Thick Narrative Analysis. On the
Question of Defining and Analysing Political Narratives’, Narrative Inquiry 15/1 (2005) pp. 75–99.
23. On internal and external account of disciplinary history of IR, see Duncan Bell, ‘Writing the
World: Disciplinary History and Beyond’, International Affairs 85/1 (2009) pp. 3–22.
24. James Paul Gee, An Introduction to Discourse Analysis: Theory and Method (Hoboken:
Routledge 2011) pp. 29, 40, 44.
25. Stuart Hall, ‘Foucault: Power, Knowledge and Discourse’, in Margaret Wetherell, Stephanie
Taylor, and Simeon J. Yates (eds.), Discourse Theory and Practice. A Reader (London: Sage 2001) p. 74.
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26. David N. Livingstone, Putting Science in Its Place. Geographies of Scientific Knowledge
(Chicago: The University of Chicago Press 2003) pp. 2–3, 86.
27. Russian universities follow national educational standards. The standards are prepared by the
educational methods union on classical university education UMOs (Uchebno-metodicheskoe Ob’’edinenie
(UMO) po klassicheskomu universitetskomu obrazovaniyu) but are approved by the Ministry of Education.
(See Jim M. Butterfield and Ekaterina Levintova, ‘Academic Freedom and International Standards in Higher
Education: Contestation in Journalism and Political Science at Moscow State University’, Communist and
Post-Communist Studies 44/4[5] (2011) pp. 245–380.)
28. Tsygankov, ‘Mastering Space in Eurasia’ (note 19) used three of the textbooks under exami-
nation as his data for classifying Russian geopolitical schools: Gadzhiev’s, Kolosov and Mironenko’s, and
Nikolai Nartov’s earlier textbook. Tsygankov studied the responses by the authors to different conflicts,
particularly in the post-Soviet territory.
29. N. N. Ashenkampf and S. V. Pogorel’skaya, Sovremennaya geopolitika: Uchebnoe posobie
(Moskva: Akademicheskii Proekt 2005).
30. K. S. Gadzhiev, Vvedenie v geopolitiku (Moskva: Logos 2000).
31. N. A. Nartov and V. N. Nartov, Geopolitika (Moskva: Edinstvo. Izdatelstvo politicheskoi lit-
eratury 2007). See also two book reviews: Jarmo Eronen and Risto Laulajainen, ‘Three Textbooks in
Geopolitics’, Political Geography 28 (2009) pp. 142–147; and Vadim Tsymburskii, review of Geopolitika.
(Moscow: Unity) by N. A. Nartov, POLIS (2002), available at <http://www.politstudies.ru/universum/
biblio/01_02_2000.htm>, accessed March 2009.
32. I. A. Vasilenko, Geopolitika sovremennogo mira (Moskva: Gardariki 2007).
33. The lectures referred to in this article consist of the following:
Lecturer and date Code used in the references
Minyar-Beloruchev 21 Sep. 2010 MB1
Minyar-Beloruchev 28 Sep. 2010 MB2
Minyar-Beloruchev 12 Oct. 2010 MB3
Minyar-Beloruchev 2 Nov. 2010 MB4
Minyar-Beloruchev 30 Nov. 2010 MB5
Zeleneva 8 Sep. 2010 Z1
Zeleneva 10 Nov. 2010 Z2
Mironenko 6 Oct. 2010 M1
Mironenko 17 Nov. 2010 M2
Kabachenko 23 Sep. 2010 K1
Kabachenko 30 Sep. 2010 K2
Kabachenko 7 Oct. 2010 K3
Aksenov 16 Feb. 2010 A1
Aksenov 10 Feb. 2010 A2
34. V. A. Kolosov and N. S. Mironenko, Geopolitika i politicheskaya geografiya (Moskva: Aspekt
Press 2002).
 Making the Future Generation in Russia 107

35. Konstantin Minyar-Beloruchev, ‘Rossiiskaya geopolitika v kontekste globalizatsii: problemy

metodologii’, in I. I. Abylgaziev and I.V. Il’in (eds.), Globalistika kak oblast’ nauchnykh issledovanii i
sfera prepodavaniya (Moskva: Moskovskii gosudarstvennyi universitet imeni M.V. Lomonosova. Fakul’tet
globalnykh protsessov 2008); Konstantin Minyar-Beloruchev, ‘Global’noe geopoliticheskoe prostranstvo:
problemy strukturirovaniya’, in I. I. Abylgaziev and I. V. Il’in (eds.), Globalistika-2009. Puti vyhoda iz
global’nogo krizisa i modeli miroustroistva (Moskva: Moskovskii gosudarsvennyi universitet imeni M.V.
Lomonosova. Fakul’tet global’nykh protsessov 2009); K. V. Minyar-Beloruchev, Geopolitika. Uchebno-
metodicheskoe posobie (Moskva: Moskovskii gosudarstvennyi universitet imeni M.V. Lomonosova. 2009).
36. I. V. Zeleneva, Geopolitika I geostrategiya Rossii. XVIII-pervaya polovina XIX veka. Izdanie
2-e, ispravlennoe (Izdatel’stvo S.-Peterburgskogo universiteta 2005); V. I. Yakunin, E. I. Zelenev, and I. V.
Zeleneva, Rossiiskaya shkola geopolitiki (Izdatel’stvo S.-Peterburgskogo universiteta 2008).
37. Konstantin Aksenov, ‘Geopoliticheskie predstavleniya chelovechestva’, in S. B. Lavrov and
N. V. Kaledin (eds.), Ekonomicheskaya, sotsial’naya i politicheskaya geografiya mira. Regiony i strany.
Uchebnik (Moskva: Gardariki 2002).
38. Boris Isaev, Geopolitika (Sankt-Peterburg: Piter 2006).
39. See Solovyev (note 19).
40. MB1.
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41. M1, Z1.

42. MB1, K1; Isaev (note 38) pp. 33–49, see also Vasilenko (note 32) pp. 11–18; Ashenkampf and
Pogorel’skaya (note 29) p. 12.
43. K1, MB1; see Vasilenko (note 32) pp. 20–27; Isaev (note 38) pp. 27–33.
44. MB1, K1; Isaev (note 38) pp. 63–89; Vasilenko (note 32) pp. 11–18; Gadzhiev (note 30) p. 11.
45. See Isaev (note 38) p. 22; Ashenkampf and Pogorel’skaya (note 29) p. 13; Gadzhiev (note
30) pp. 4–5, 9; A1.
46. John Agnew, Geopolitics. Re-Visioning World Politics (London: Routledge 1998).
47. Germanskaya, not nemechkaya.
48. The different responses among Russian critics to Huntington’s clash of civilisations thesis and
to Fukuyama’s end of history thesis have been addressed by Andrei P. Tsygankov, ‘The Irony of Western
Ideas in a Multicultural World: Russians’ Intellectual Engagement with the ‘End of History’ and ‘Clash of
Civilisations’’, International Studies Review 5 (2003) pp. 53–76.
49. See Vasilenko (note 32) p. 45.
50. Ibid., p. 103.
51. Nartov and Nartov (note 31) p. 98.
52. Eurasianism is not necessarily considered a homogenous movement or school but is seen as
consisting of individual authors (Z2).
53. Based on a survey conducted among students who had taken a geopolitics course in Moscow,
Tomsk, Tyumen, and Kemerovo State University in 2010–2011. However, most of the students only know
Dugin’s book by name but have not read it.
54. Stephen D. Shenfield, Russian Fascism. Traditions, Tendencies, Movements (Armonk, NY:
M.E. Sharpe 2001); Alan Ingram, ‘Aleksandr Dugin: Geopolitics and Neo-Fascism in Post-Soviet Russia’,
Political Geography 20/8 (2001) pp. 1029–1051; Andreas Umland, ‘Fascist Tendencies in Russia’s
Political Establishment: The Rise of the International Eurasian Movement’, Russian Analytical Digest
60 (2009) pp. 13–17; Marlène Laruelle, ‘The Two Faces of Contemporary Eurasianism: An Imperial
Version of Russian Nationalism’, Nationalities Papers: The Journal of Nationalism and Ethnicity 32/1
(2004) pp. 115–136.
55. A2.
56. Nartov and Nartov (note 31) pp. 148–149.
57. Kolosov (note 4) p. 101.
58. For example, on theoretical and practical geopolitics see Minyar-Beloruchev, ‘Rossiiskaya
geopolitika’ (note 35) p. 1.
59. Ashenkampf and Pogorel’skaya (note 29) p. 6.
60. A2.
61. Kolosov and Mironenko (note 34) p. 27.
62. Cf. Müller, ‘Education’ (note 6) p. 9; Müller, Making (note 6) p. 113.
63. Ibid.
64. Ibid.
65. M2.
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66. Kolosov and Mironenko (note 34) p. 64. This is exactly what Bassin concluded in 1987; see
Peter J. Taylor, Political Geography: World-Economy, Nation-State and Locality (Harlow: Longman 1991)
p. 50.
67. MB2.
68. John Agnew, Making Political Geography (London: Arnold 2002) p. 57.
69. Ibid., p. 58.
70. Müller, Making (note 6) p. 113.
71. George Steimetz, ‘Response to Axel van den Berg (The Politics on Method in the Human
Sciences: Positivism and Its Epistemological Others)’, Canadian Journal of Sociology Online May–June
(2006) p. 6.
72. David Dessler, ‘Constructivism within a Positivist Social Science’, Review of International Studies
25 (1999) pp. 123–137.
73. Nartov and Nartov (note 31) p. 26.
74. This holds true for another geopolitician who is usually classified as a Neo-Eurasianist, Panarin
(Solovyev (note 19) p. 91; see on the interpretations of Dugin’s and Panarin’s ideas, e.g., Laruelle (note 20,
‘Russian Eurasianism’)). Panarin was a professor at the Moscow State University, Faculty of Philosophy,
where his widow, Irina Vasilenko, continues to teach.
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75. MB4.
76. Vasilenko (note 32) p. 5.
77. Zeleneva (note 36) pp. 5, 25.
78. However, in the co-edited book (Yakunin, Zelenev, and Zeleneva [note 36]) geostrategy retains
its ‘traditional’ meaning.
79. Interview with Irina Busygina, 2011.
80. Gadzhiev (note 30) pp. 4, 9, 41.
81. Kolosov and Mironenko (note 34) p. 39.
82. MB1.
83. Kolosov and Mironenko (note 34) p. 139.
84. Ibid., p. 162.
85. Gadzhiev (note 30) p. 29.
86. A1.
87. Isaev (note 38).
88. Vasilenko (note 32) p. 86.
89. Ibid., p. 138.
90. Solovyev (note 19) p. 94.
91. See Ashenkampf and Pogorel’skaya (note 29) p. 5; Minyar-Beloruchev, Geopolitika (note 35)
2009, p. 6; and Minyar-Beloruchev, ‘Rossiiskaya geopolitika’ (note 35) p. 201.
92. K1.
93. K3.
94. K1, K2.
95. K1.
96. Interview with Irina Busygina, 2011.
97. See TRIP Survey 2011, available at <http://irtheoryandpractice.wm.edu/projects/trip/
TRIPAroundTheWorld2011.pdf>.My sample is very small considering the whole community of IR and
political science in Russia. Therefore, generalising my conclusions might not do justice to teachers and
scholars in IR and political science as a whole, not to mention teachers in geography programmes.
However, it seems that Russian teachers are closer to their US colleagues than to their European colleagues
in the paradigms and worldviews they represent.
98. Ó Tuathail, Critical Geopolitics (note 12) p. 23.
99. Ibid., p. 12. Emphasis mine.
100. Except for the recommended reading in Minyar-Beloruchev’s course programme, where works
of Ó Tuathail and Dodds are listed among approximately 150 other sources.
101. Nick Megoran, ‘Neoclassical Geopolitics’, Guest Editorial, Political Geography 29/4
(2010) pp. 187–189. See also Virginie Mamadouh, ‘Geopolitics in the Nineties: One Flag, Many Meanings’,
GeoJournal 46/4 (1998) pp. 237–253.
102. E.g., Ó Tuathail, ‘Theorizing’ (note 16).
103. See, e.g., Sirke Mäkinen, ‘Surkovian Narrative on the Future of Russia: Making Russia a World
Leader’, Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics 27/2 (2011) pp. 143–165.