Conference Paper

In the summer of 1993, the article “The Clash of Civilizations?” (with the question mark) was published by Samuel Huntington in Foreign Affairs. Three years later Huntington’s expanded thesis was published in book format. Article and book generated both discussion and controversy, given that the author had posited the idea that civilizations, which may also be read as cultural communities or cultural fault lines posed a great threat to world peace in the New World Order that had emerged from the end of the Cold War. Is his work simply rooted in its own time period as a response to Fukuyama’s End of History and the Last Man (1989 and 1992) and the beginning of the War against Terrorism (11 September 2001) – roughly a ten yearlong period? Or, does it still resonate today at the ‘End of the End of the Cold War’ in the continuing aftermath of the 2008 Financial Crisis, growing terrorism and the rise of right-wing populism? This chapter will revisit Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations with reference to key Russian intellectuals writing in the period, most notably Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Igor Chubais and Alexander Dugin. It will demonstrate how these writers have influenced Russian opinion both during the crisis years of the 1990s and in Vladimir Putin’s resurgent Russia. The focus of this chapter will be on Russia, Europe and the influence and fluid nature of identity politics.