Burden of the Third Rome: the threat of Russian Orthodox fundamentalism and Muslim Eurasia
For contemporary Muslim public opinion, anxious to comprehend the revival of Orthodoxy and nostalgia for starina (old times), the growing radical Orthodox fundamentalism seems to indicate the return of anti‐Islamic Pan‐Slavism. The Neo‐Soviet National Liberals and National Communists are both oppose...
| Published in: | Islam and Christian-Muslim relations |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic/Print Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Routledge
1998
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| In: |
Islam and Christian-Muslim relations
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| Further subjects: | B
Russian Federation
B Nationalism B Orientalische Kirchen B Russische Föderation B Islam B Oriental Church B Conflict B Asia B Fundamentalism B Caucasus |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (doi) |
| Summary: | For contemporary Muslim public opinion, anxious to comprehend the revival of Orthodoxy and nostalgia for starina (old times), the growing radical Orthodox fundamentalism seems to indicate the return of anti‐Islamic Pan‐Slavism. The Neo‐Soviet National Liberals and National Communists are both opposed to the self‐determination of Muslims in Tatarstan, Boshkirstan, Chechnya, Crimea and Daghestan. They are also hostile to the Islamic revival ( al‐sahwa al‐islamiyya) in Central Asian Turkestan and Tajikistan. Their misconception of Islam is shaped by the long tradition of Russian messianism which is rejuvenated after every cyclical decline of Russian political authority. The success of Russian messianic nationalism lies neither in its selective historiosophy nor in its dialectic politics, but in the charismatic reasoning of the old geopolitical threats to the existence of Russians, demonized as the Islamic reconquest of Idel‐Ural (Musulmanskiye dvizheny na Volgu) initiated by the restoration of Pan‐Turkic Islamistan and the Muslim Commonwealth in Central Asia. Like other Russian philosophies of the past, modern Russian nationalism draws on a host of European thinkers and their ideas, but its context is governed by the fundamental notion of ‘Holy Mother Russia’ (Sviataya Matushka Rassieya) and its Byzantine paradigm of ‘the True Holy Church of Constantinople’. Influenced by the militant anti‐Islamic and anti‐Western traditions of the Eastern Orthodox Church, modem All‐Russian nationalism has become a new and dangerous chimera of economically and politically frustrated Russians. Revitalized Russian Orthodox fundamentalism is a real threat to the newly emancipated Islamic East, because the fall of Communist atheist tyranny did not eliminate the old threat of Russian Orthodox hegemony in the Russian Federation, Central Asia and the Caucasian independent republics. Invasion, occupation and military interventions in the Chechen Republic of Itchek‐eria, Azerbaijan and Tadjikistan, as well as the prospect of armed rebellions by the Russian separatist minorities in Kazakhstan, Daghestan, Ingushetia, Crimea and Tatarstan, explicitly demonstrate the nature of All‐Russian hegemonism at the end of the post‐postmodernist age. The geopolitical and cultural continuity of the Tsarist‐Soviet empire, regardless of the political and economic regime in Moscow, still determines Russian Islamophobia and animates an obsession with ‘national security’ among the rulers of the Kremlin, who attempt to improve Russia's strategic status by a re‐annexation of the so‐called ‘near abroad’ ( blizhnee zarubezhye) countries into the Russian‐dominated confederation of Independent States. |
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| ISSN: | 0959-6410 |
| Contains: | In: Islam and Christian-Muslim relations
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1080/09596419808721148 |