Finding a Civilisational Idea: "West," Eurasia," and "Euro-East" in Russia's Foreign Policy

Civilisations are imagined, ratherm than real, and nations undergoing identity crises typically represent themselves through multiple civilisational visions. Scholars of geopolitics can hardly understand foreign policy without analysing those visions and social contexts, in which they rise and fall. This article selects for analysis three distinct civilisational ideas of Russia - "West," "Eurasia" and "Euro-East" - associated with Boris Yeltsin, Yevgeni Primakov and Vladimir Putin, respectively. Russia's foreign policy is best understood as reflecting those civilisational ideas rather than merely material power conditions.