Dead Souls

From early modernity, but particularly during the nationalist rise in the 19th century and again after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russians have been obsessed with the quest for their identity. At the intersection of the West and East, between a nation and empire, Russia has never fully constituted itself as a nationstate, instead understanding itself as an empire searching for its place in the world. This identity search has manifested through the messianic mission of being a "Third Rome" and defender of Orthodox Christianity, or the protector of a "Russian World" as a political project echoing Russian imperial self-understanding. This article examines Russia's quest for identity by focusing on Gogol's troika as a political metaphor of Russia's messianic and imperial destiny, on Carl Schmitt's use the concept of katechon, historically rooted in Christian eschatology, on Alexander Dugin's view of Russian katechonic identity that brings together Russian messianism, imperialism, and nationalism to the eschatological dimension positioning Russia as the bulwark against the Antichrist embodied in Western liberal modernity, and finally, on Vladimir Putin's adoption of the "Russian World" concept, which has become an official part of Russian foreign policy that embraced the "state-civilization" identity as a historical destiny, justifying Russian imperialism, particularly in the context of Russia's imperial war campaign in Ukraine.