Revisiting the Ontology of Russia’s Heartland Geopolitics in its Contemporaneity
Revisiting the Ontology of Russia’s Heartland Geopolitics in its Contemporaneity

Summary/Abstract: The paper aims at assessing the long duree of Russian geopolitics from the perspective of the Heartland model as envisaged by Sir Mackinder. This was modeled in order to give an alarmist view about the locational supremacy of Russia over the Eurasian Heartland. But, the Heartland model has had many arguments that pointed to the approach long-seated before Mackinder could deploy them for the West. The paper looks at the conceptualization of Eurasianism or Russian geopolitical thought as an ontological praxis of Heartland thesis. The ethno-religious base of Slavism and Russian Orthodoxy made a complex compromise with the Asian peoples in order to strike multiple balances both in the European theatre and the Euro-Asian realm at large. The Heartland signified a perennial contest between western democracies and the Asiatic authoritarianism. Russia inherited this geo-cultural repository and worked with China giving rise to bigger Heartland discourse.

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