The Most Famous

POLITICAL SCIENTISTS from Russia

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This page contains a list of the greatest Russian Political Scientists. The pantheon dataset contains 46 Political Scientists, 1 of which were born in Russia. This makes Russia the birth place of the 6th most number of Political Scientists behind Norway, and China.

Top 3

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary Russian Political Scientists of all time. This list of famous Russian Political Scientists is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.

Photo of Aleksandr Dugin

1. Aleksandr Dugin (b. 1962)

With an HPI of 63.06, Aleksandr Dugin is the most famous Russian Political Scientist.  His biography has been translated into 55 different languages on wikipedia.

Aleksandr Gelyevich Dugin (Russian: Александр Гельевич Дугин; born 7 January 1962) is a Russian far-right political philosopher. Born into a military intelligence family, Dugin was an anti-communist dissident during the 1980s. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Dugin co-founded the National Bolshevik Party with Eduard Limonov, a party which espoused National Bolshevism, which he later left. In 1997, he published Foundations of Geopolitics, in which he outlined his worldview, calling for Russia to rebuild its influence through alliances and conquest, and to challenge the rival Atlanticist empire led by the United States. Dugin continued to further develop his ideology of neo-Eurasianism, founding the Eurasia Party in 2002 and writing further books including The Fourth Political Theory (2009). His political views have been characterized as fascist or neo-fascist, although he explicitly rejects fascism as part of his Fourth Political Theory, seeing fascism as focused on nation while Fourth Theory focused on Dasein and cast as reject much of the racial aspects of fascism. Dugin served as an advisor to Gennadiy Seleznyov, and later Sergey Naryshkin, when they served as Chairman of the State Duma. He was the head of the Department of Sociology of International Relations at Moscow State University from 2009 to 2014, losing the position due to backlash over comments regarding the 2014 Odesa clashes. Dugin also briefly served as chief editor of the pro-Kremlin Christian Orthodox channel Tsargrad TV when it launched in 2015. In 2019, Dugin was appointed as a senior fellow at Fudan University in China. Nowadays, he is director of the 2023 establishment Educational and scientific center—Ivan Ilyin Higher School of Politics at the Russian State University for the Humanities. His influence on the Russian government and on president Vladimir Putin is disputed. Although he has no official ties to the Kremlin, he is often referred to in foreign media as "Putin's brain"; others say that his influence is exaggerated. Dugin is known for controversial positions, such as his claim that fascist ideology is an inherent part of Western liberalism rather than Eurasianism. In line with this stance, Dugin portrays the Russian invasion of Ukraine as part of a holy war against "absolute Evil, embodied in Western civilisation, its liberal-totalitarian hegemony and in Ukrainian Nazism". Dugin's daughter, Darya, was assassinated in car bombing in 2022. The assassination is widely believed to have been conducted by Ukraine, though the exact relation of the assassins to the Ukrainian government is undetermined.

Photo of Marfa Boretskaya

2. Marfa Boretskaya (1450 - 1503)

With an HPI of 50.80, Marfa Boretskaya is the 2nd most famous Russian Political Scientist.  Her biography has been translated into 18 different languages.

Marfa Boretskaya, also known as Martha the Mayoress (Russian: Марфа Посадница - Marfa Posadnitsa), was the wife of Isaac Boretsky, Novgorod's posadnik in 1438–1439 and again in 1453. According to legend and historical tradition, she led the republic's struggle against Muscovy between her husband's death and the city's eventual annexation by Ivan III of Russia in 1478.

Photo of Alena V. Ledeneva

3. Alena V. Ledeneva (b. 1964)

With an HPI of 35.74, Alena V. Ledeneva is the 3rd most famous Russian Political Scientist.  Her biography has been translated into 16 different languages.

Alena Valeryevna Ledeneva (Russian: Алёна Валерьевна Леденёва; born May 1964) is a Russian academic known for her studies of corruption and informal practices in Russia, particularly blat. She is currently Professor of Politics and Society at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES), University College London (UCL).

People

Pantheon has 3 people classified as Russian political scientists born between 1450 and 1964. Of these 3, 2 (66.67%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living Russian political scientists include Aleksandr Dugin, and Alena V. Ledeneva. The most famous deceased Russian political scientists include Marfa Boretskaya. As of April 2024, 2 new Russian political scientists have been added to Pantheon including Marfa Boretskaya, and Alena V. Ledeneva.

Living Russian Political Scientists

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Deceased Russian Political Scientists

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Newly Added Russian Political Scientists (2024)

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