Alexander Dugin Explained

It was in 2011 that I first learned about Alexander Dugin, the now infamous Russian political theorist and activist. I was an undergraduate philosophy student at the University of British Columbia. My interest in Strauss had led me to Azure, the now defunct neoconservative journal of Jewish ideas, in which I read an article by Yigal Liverant titled “The Prophet of the New Russian Empire.” Liverant’s account of Dugin engaged three of my intellectual concerns: the unique character of Russian thought, the mystical tradition as a counterweight to modern rationalism, and the Platonic figure of the philosopher-king. Dugin addressed all three. He appeared to me as a mystical philosopher-king whose thought held the key to understanding Russia as a specific civilization.