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The most astonishing new foundation in the extreme right-wing intellectual milieu, however, is a small circle that calls itself the Florian Geyer Conceptual Club and was founded in September 2011. Led by the notorious Islamist and avowed anti-Western activist Geidar Dzhemal, the group uses the name of a figure from the German Peasants’ War of the 16th century. The historical figure Geyer is entirely unknown in Russia, and unfamiliar even to many Germans. The name Florian Geyer, however, is well-known among experts on contemporary European history, as the byname of the Third Reich’s 8th SS Cavalry Division, which was deployed on the Eastern front in 1943-1944.
Dzhemal, Dugin, and Shevchenko, the founders of the Florian Geyer Club, claim to be referring to the former peasant warrior and not to the SS division. Dugin’s past in particular, however, suggests that the club’s founders are familiar with the name’s Third Reich association and that the twofold historical significance of Florian Geyer is actually intended. From 1980 to 1990, Dzhemal and Dugin were members of a small occult circle in Moscow that called itself the Black Order of the SS. During the 1990s, Dugin, both under the pseudonym Aleksandr Sternberg and under his own name, repeatedly expressed support for sympathizers, members, and divisions of the SS, for example the Ahnenerbe Institut (Ancestral Heritage Institute) of the SS, the Italian fascist theorist and admirer of the Waffen-SS Julius Evola, the SS-Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler, and the SS-Obergruppenfuhrer Reinhard Heydrich (the initial organizer of the Holocaust).
Thus, it is all the more astonishing that – in addition to several right-wing extremists – some well-known Russian intellectuals were participating in the club’s roundtable-talks who do not fit the mold, among them historian Igor Chubais, legal scholar Mark Feygin, and sociologist Boris Kagarlitsky. It is also worth noting that, at the meetings of the club, anti-American activists from abroad were also invited to speak, including, for instance, the notorious Italian “traditionalist” Claudio Mutti.
Another noteworthy participant is the infamous political writer Vladimir Kucherenko, better known under his pseudonym, Maksim Kalashnikov, who is also a member of the Isborsk Club. Like Dugin, he sympathizes with aspects of National Socialism and weaves extravagant flights of political fantasy in his publications. In the book Toward USSR-2 (2003), which had a large print run, for example, Kucherenko-Kalashnikov speculates about a future “neuro-world” that would be a “structure” combining the characteristics “of a church, a giant media conglomerate, and a financial empire” that is “equipped with a secret service.”
As in the case of the Anti-Orange Committee, despite its continued Internet presence, it is unclear whether the club is still active. The last meeting documented on the Florian Geyer club’s website took place in June 2012.
full: http://www.tol.org/client/article/23918-russia-the-uses-of-extremism.html
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