Michal Racyn's The Transformation of Eurasianism in Soviet Intellectual Milieu, 1950s-1991: Blurring the Lines and Establishing Artificial Continuity fills the gap in the intellectual genealogy of Eurasianism between the Classical Eurasianism pf N. S. Trubetskoj, P. N. Savitskij, and George Vernadsky and others of the period between World War I and World War II, and the Neo-Eurasianism that arose after the fall of Communism in 1991 of A. Dugin and others by examining the 1950s-1980s theories of L. N. Gumilev and V. V. Kozhinov, who Racyn labels “Trans-Eurasianists.” Racyn's scrupulous analysis of Trans-Eurasian publications and archival evidence from St. Petersburg, Prague and New York, mostly correspondence between the surviving Classical Eurasianists and the Trans-Eurasianists, definitively proves that the Trans-Eurasianists departed from Classical Eurasianism and their self-serving self-identification as Eurasianists is to a significant degree fictional. Racyn's conclusion sheds new light on Neo-Eurasianism, whose advocates imitate their Trans-Eurasianist predecessors in proclaiming a fictitious continuity between themselves and Classical Eurasianism.

Charles J. Halperin, Independent scholar

This book contributes to widening our knowledge about the complex and nonlinear transformation of Eurasianism – a political idea that has not lost its relevance in Putin's Russia today.

Wolfgang Mueller, Professor of Russian History, University of Vienna, Austria

The work constitutes a substantial and original contribution to the study of Russian intellectual history, as well as a tangible contribution to Eurasian (and Eurasianist) studies.

European History Quarterly

Among the book's principal merits is its formidable archival foundation. The extensive use of unpublished correspondence enables Racyn to move beyond schematic intellectual genealogy and to reconstruct the lived networks and polemics that shaped Eurasianist thought. Furthermore, by incorporating lesser-known figures such as Toll', Khara-Davan, Kozhinov, and Zelinsky, the study substantially advances the historiography, deepening our understanding of the Eurasianist movement and illuminating the breadth of its influence. The selection of the three case studies is particularly effective in illustrating the mechanisms through which Eurasianist concepts were readapted and radicalized by Gumilev's scholarship. […] The work constitutes a substantial and original contribution to the study of Russian intellectual history, as well as a tangible contribution to Eurasian (and Eurasianist) studies. By disentangling myth from genealogy and by interrogating the 'artificial continuity' between interwar Eurasianism and late Soviet nationalism, Racyn offers a nuanced and meticulously documented account of a tradition whose reverberations continue to shape Eurasian geopolitical imaginaries. The book will undoubtedly become a reference point for scholars of Russian nationalism, Soviet intellectual history, and the ideological foundations of Eurasianism.

Paolo Pizzolo, Jagiellonian University, in European History Quarterly (Volume 56 Issue 2)