When the second edition of Dugin’s book (2003) was trans- lated into Turkish, it attracted considerable attention and quickly gained popularity. In 2010, a 7th edition was printed, and in it Dugin’s thinking on Russia’s natural allies in the Eurasia experiment took an important turn.

In Dugin’s view, Russians will create a “supra-national Empire” in which ethnic Russians will occupy a “privi- leged position.” According to Dugin, China is Russia’s most dangerous geopolitical neighbor. Tibet, Xinjiang, Mongolia, and Manchuria (Northern China) together comprise a security belt for Russia that keeps China at some distance. A “grand alliance” of Russia and Turania should divide imperial spoils with “the Islamic Empire in the South.” Russia’s “south” is composed of the Caucasus, Central Asia, Mongolia, the Iranian Empire, and Armenia. Armenia, in Dugin’s thinking, will serve as the center point of a Moscow-Yerevan-Teheran axis whose purpose is to thwart any designs that Turkey might have to its north and east. Azerbaijan will be split up among Iran, Russia, and Armenia.

a preordained and natural phenomenon. In 1998, Dugin’s career took a large step forward when he was named advisor on geopolitics to Genadii Seleznev, chairman of the Russian State Duma. Dugin’s book gained considerable currency, and today it is even being used as a text book at the General Staff Academy. On May 31, 2001, the Russian Ministry of Justice officially registered the “Eurasia” movement.

This was Dugin’s provocative appeal to Turkey in the preface, which made the last edition stand out:

As a national state and NATO member, Turkey is inimical to the Eurasian project...Its selective assistance to the Chechen separatists, the permanent old Turkish- Armenian dispute, its supporting of an anti-Moscow atmosphere in Baku, and all issues connected with

the construction of Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, evidently suits the pro-Atlantic and anti-Eurasian strate- gies of Ankara.

We Slavs understand the urge to empire of our comradely Turkish people, and we are ready to stretch out our hand of friendship. Eurasia is very big and its immense bound- aries will be enough for everyone. But if the ominous notion that the 21st century will become the “American century” becomes reality, then we are going to lose our common fatherland.1

In articles Dugin published later and that were trans- lated into Turkish, he noted the evolving attraction of the Eurasian idea to Turks:

The idea of Eurasianism in Turkey took root first in the leftwing environment... The Workers Party of Turkey under the leadership of Mr. Doğu Perinçek, its organ the journal Aydinlik and other institutions close to them, accepted Eurasianism ... But also rightwing nationalists, centrists, some religious circles, some military leaders of Turkish army, intellectual foundations like the Ahmed Yesevi Foundation and ASAM (Eurasian Strategic Research Center), the ”Dialog Eurasia Platform” move- ment, which tries to bring members of the Common- wealth of Independent States and Turkish intellectuals closer together, and other institutions or movements showed interest to this Eurasia concept.2

Dugin’s Eurasian Political Party could not break the 5 percent barrier in Russia’s 2003 State Duma elections,

but he was undeterred. In 2005, he formed the Union of Eurasianist Youth. Because of his provocative speeches about Russia’s unification with Ukraine, Kyiv declared him persona non grata in 2007. In May 2008 when Moscow sent troops into separatist Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Dugin was there with his youth group as chief ideologist of expan- sionism and as advisor to Putin’s United Russia Party. On August 26, 2008, Dugin visited South Ossetia to celebrate Russia’s recognition of its independence, despite the farcical appearance of this action. (The larger part of Northern Ossetia, about 450,000 citizens, is a part of the Russian Federation, while Southern Ossetia with its 70,000 is now “independent,” thanks to Russia’s intervention.)