Neo-Ottomanism versus Neo-Eurasianism?: Nationalism and Symbolic Geography in Postimperial Turkey and Russia

This essay investigates the ideational aspect of contemporary Turkey’s identity politics and international conduct and compares these to Russia’s. Over the past decade, several analysts have speculated that Russia and Turkey could form a strategic axis based on the shared vision of “Eurasia” and that there is similarity between Moscow’s and Ankara’s strategic outlooks: Russian neo-Eurasianism and Turkey’s Kemalist Eurasianism. Yet the outlook that defines Ankara’s understanding of Turkish national interest is not so much a permutation of Eurasianist ideas as it is a homegrown postimperial (and post-Kemalist) strategic vision, also known as neo-Ottomanism. Despite their philosophical affinity, neo-Eurasianism and neo-Ottomanism contain significant potential for confrontation.