“Nebuchadnezzar Archetype” of Eurasian Cultures in Nikolay Leskov’s Eurasian Concept: Implications for Modern Russia

Abstract

In his literary works, the prominent Russian writer Nikolay Semenovich Leskov (1831-1895) introduced the concept of “Nebuchadnezzar’s archetype” of Russian mentality, that is, according to Leskov, a Eurasian mentality. Leskov opposed “holy foolishness,” a part of the described Eurasian archetype, to European rationality that distanced itself from God as a result of Enlightenment. However, the writer distinguished between the “holy foolishness” for God’s sake, a constituent of Russian mentality, and the “holy foolishness” for own sake, a component of Russian official state politics, that he regarded as an absolute evil. In “Nebuchadnezzar’s archetype,” Nikolay Leskov saw a reaction of the Russian national mentality to a number of heavy military and diplomatic defeats of Russian Empire caused by Europe in the mid-nineteenth century (e.g. Crimean war, Russo-Turkish war of 1877-1878). After these defeats, according to Leskov, Russian nation turned to its Eurasian origins, while Russian government kept loyalty to European-style of politics. In the article, I demonstrate the implications of Leskov’s concept of “Nebuchdnezzar’s archetype” for understanding and classifying modern Russian politics in Eurasian space.