The Minsk Dialogue Council on International Relations (19 January 2024)

Dr. Teoman Ertuğrul TULUN*

Eurasia is a portmanteau word expressing the land mass of two continents named Asia and Europe by the ancient Greeks. It is a fictional fusion of two conventionally named continents, which stands for an abstract idea that can be considered a concept. In terms of surface area, while Asia corresponds to one-third of the Earth’s land mass, Europe is the second smallest continent in the world after Australia. The land mass of Asia is four times larger in area than Europe. Although there is no clear geographical or geological boundary to the east of the European continent, common knowledge has traditionally held that the east of Europe is separated from Asia by the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, and the Caucasus Mountains, and to the southeast by the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea. Pursuant to this general understanding, the Mediterranean Sea separates Europe from Africa in the south. Europe’s western borders are defined by the Atlantic Ocean and in the north by the Polar Sea.

Eurasianism as an intellectual construct

Eurasianism, on the other hand, is a construct developed wisely by Russian intellectuals that essentially represents a socio-political movement that challenged the supremacy of Eurocentric thought at the beginning of the 20th century. This challenge is also a multi-purpose intellectual process that has since offered a way of defining Russia’s place in world politics.

To read the rest of the article, please click: https://minskdialogue.by/en/research/opinions/is-eurasianism-a-monolithic-construct

For access to the Russian translation of this article, please click: https://minskdialogue.by/research/opinions/iavliaetsia-li-evraziistvo-monolitnoi-konstruktciei

* This article was published as part of AVİM's partnership program. Dr. Teoman Ertuğrul Tulun is an Analyst at AVİM. This article was published at the Minsk-based Minsk Dialogue Council on International Relations, a partner organization of AVİM. For AVİM’s partnership program, click here.

** Image: The Minsk Dialogue Council on International Relations