Russia’s ‘Young Conservatives:’ Revamping Conservatism à la Russe

• In Event: Taking New-Right Thinkers Seriously: Perspectives on Europe, Russia, and the US

Abstract

This paper will be discussing the rise of a new generation of Russian conservative thinkers close to the Kremlin that has been called Young Conservatives (mladokonservatism), especially Boris Mezhuev and Mikhail Remizov. Contrary to the most famous ideologists of Russian nationalism and Eurasianism such as Alexander Dugin, this new generation has not been very visible abroad, yet it speaks foreign language and follows closely the transformations of European and US ideological landscapes. They offer a more moderate vision of a conservative ideology for Russia that combines both a come back to some national philosophical traditions and borrowing from the revived Western conservative thinking. They also advance narratives that are more easily "applied" for the Kremlin's policies, and has been the core ideologists of the transformations of Moscow as a leader of a new conservative international.

Author

• Marlene Laruelle, George Washington University