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Russian geopolitics at the Fin‐de‐siecle

What is contemporary Russia? Is it a successor state of the Russian Empire, of 'historical' Russia? Is it the heir of the Soviet Union? Or perhaps it derives from both of them? Or maybe it is seeking a completely new and autonomous road of development? This discourse, generated in Russia by the crisis and then by the disintegration of the USSR, remains unsolved even a decade after the break up of the Soviet Union. Foreign policy and, in a broader sense, geopolitics plays an important role in the formation of ethnic and political identity. Numerous factors influence the contemporary geopolitical discourse in Russia. These include speculations about history, national symbols and other elements of iconography, as well as the status of Russian minorities in new independent countries. The discussion focuses on the essence and sources of external threats, relations with neighbors, actual and potential enemies and allies. In the post-Soviet period, the foreign policy and external geopolitical questions are closely related with important domestic issues.3 The geopolitical debate is stimulated by the planned further enlargement of NATO to the east, considered by practically all social strata as an attempt to erect a new iron curtain, to isolate Russia from the outside world and to transform it into 'a problem country'. The debates about Russian geopolitics in the country itself and abroad can be divided in three interdependent areas of discussion: