‘Geopolitical awareness’ as a cultural paradigm for Putin’s Russia

This paper aims to explain the formation process of a sort of “geopolitical awareness” in the Russian élites and civil society during the presidency of Vladimir Putin. The process is the result of various historical factors and latest trends since the dissolution of the USSR, especially the rise of neo-Eurasianism and Russia's failure to restore its pre-eminence in the post-Soviet space. While Russian geopolitical visions and traditions have at times been overlooked in western studies, this paper attempts to provide a historical perspective and a theoretical explanation of this geopolitical consciousness as a cultural paradigm of an imperial self-perception.