Mackinder and the Heartland Theory in Post-Soviet Geopolitical Discourse

This paper considers the ways in which Halford Mackinder's ideas are represented and mobilized in geopolitical discourses in post-Soviet Russia. Mackinder is broadly recognized as the most important proponent of ‘classical’ geopolitics, and his teachings about the Pivot of History and Heartland are referred to in virtually all geopolitical texts. Not all of this attention however is positive. We examine the very different ways in which Mackinder is deployed in this literature, and how he is re-signified to make his ideas relevant for contemporary Russia