Moscow State University launches new ‘Western Studies’ lecture course by Eurasianist philosopher Alexander Dugin
Eurasianist philosopher Alexander Dugin is now teaching a new course on Western Studies in Moscow State University’s political science department.
The premise of the lecture series was first revealed last October when Dugin explained that Russia needs to train Western area experts like it already studies the East. “We must study the West as an object — symmetrically to the East. And we ourselves must be the subject. A Russian subject,” argued Dugin, complaining that Russian scholars too often adopt the perspective that the West should be treated as universal and “equated with humanity as a whole.”
Last year, Alexander Dugin became the head of the controversially named Ivan Ilyin School of Higher Politics at the Russian State University for the Humanities. Like Dugin himself, the new school’s namesake, Ivan Ilyin, has a record of fascist sympathies and far-right views. Alexander Bezborodov, then the head of the university, rejected protesters’ demands, noting that Vladimir Putin has repeatedly praised Ilyin’s “deep patriotism.”
