Prof. Mark BASSIN
One of the great fascinations of studying nationalist ideologies is to follow the complex process by which foreign notions and perspective are absorbed, rescripted and resignified, and then redeployed in a manner quite different from, if not indeed opposed to their original function. This borrowing process can be an elusive one, not least of all because the ideology itself generally seeks to conceal and deny it through an insistence on the absolute individuality and uniqueness of the national ethos it describes. We know nonetheless that external sources have been particularly important for the development of Russian nationalist thought, from at least the early 18th century.