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The strange theory of Aleksandr Dugin and “child sacrifice”
Social media has been gripped by Dugin derangement syndrome
Dugin derangement syndrome. What else might we call the reaction to the assassination of Darya Dugina, daughter of nationalist Russian philosopher Aleksandr Dugin, coming from some quarters? The war in Ukraine has created a class of highly influential social media “experts,” whose analysis we might normally simply ignore if their collective reach did not number in the millions. But their latest idea is too odd to overlook. They have accused Alexander Dugin, her father, of having her killed in a ritual, esoteric sacrifice.
Take Kamil Galeev, whose following since the war has skyrocketed to 350,000 in number, including such names as Simon Schama, Bill Kristol and the Moscow bureau chief and Economics Editors of the FT. He posted a thread arguing that Darya’s assassination was an FSB plot designed to pin the blame on Ukraine, providing a pretext for an escalation: “Alexander was probably notified about this decision only after it was taken. But if it was the dad who suggested his daughter as a sacrificial animal, I wouldn’t be much surprised.”
“For context”, as he put it, Galeev retweeted a screenshot, posted by Sergej Sumlenny, showing an article on an old Dugin website that referenced (in Sumlenny’s words) “the ancient mystical tradition to sacrifice children, including a case of a father sacrificing his daughter’s life”. Sumlenny, a “Berlin-based Eastern European expert” with 100k+ Twitter followers, opined that,“Alexandr Dugin looks to be involved in the murder of his own daughter; the murder was partly seen as an esoteric ‘sacrifice’ to supernatural powers.” Joining the chorus was Dave Troy, “investigative journalist” with his own 72k Twitter followers, who wrote: “Dugin… sacrificed his own daughter, as part of an esoteric human sacrifice to advance the war to its next stage.”
In this way an article written about the iconography of the Christian holiday of Candlemas, authored by someone other than Dugin, is offered as evidence that he was involved in the ritual sacrifice of his daughter. This kind of “evidence” and “reasoning” shows you what some “Russia experts” are capable of in moments of collective derangement.
Not everyone was infected by the insanity. More grounded observers like Dr. Ian Garner posted that “There is zero evidence that Aleksandr Dugin killed his daughter as part of a ritual sacrifice. I can’t believe I have to write that.” Indeed. But the existence of these kinds of “experts” and “analysts” and their wild theories is a sobering reminder of how far away from reason the Russia discourse is headed. The challenge, now as ever, is to keep your head while those around you are losing theirs.
Michael Millerman is the author of Inside Putin’s Brain: The Political Philosophy of Alexander Dugin and the founder of the online school MillermanSchool.com
Twitter will apparently allow this kind of conspiracy nonsense, but any suggestion that the covid vaccines might have significant side effects or there’s truth in the Hunter Biden laptop story will get you swiftly banned.
I must admit that I hadn’t heard this narrative at all, but it’s sick stuff.
You can hate Dugin. You can think his philosophy is disgusting. But if you’re deriving joy from the fact that any human being has to bury his own murdered, college-aged daughter… there is something deeply wrong with you.
Actually she was 30 years old and an “activist” journalist, supportive of Putin and the war; none of which invalidates what you say though.
And she vocally supported the genocide of the Ukrainians – including their college age daughters, and all their other children too.
The author simply seems to be stretching out an article from a few daft comments from some cranks on Twitter. I tend to ignore any “information” that comes from that sewer.
Saying that I have little sympathy for Dugin or his daughter. They both played the game and it’s come back to bite them as far as I’m concerned, and the FSB bumping people off that are no longer needed is hardly unheard of
Unfortunately, such speculation was rife on the comments sections of the Telegraph and Spectator.
It is difficult to sympathize with a father who pushes for the murder of other people’s children when his own gets murdered.
If you are insinuating that Dugin is such a father perhaps you could provide some evidence. When? Where?
Or do you just disagree with him based on what you’ve read about him in the newspapers?
There are plenty of forums where he supported the Russian slaughter of Ukrainians generally – not just their military. But you knew that already.
There is no evidence to support some occult ritual, but it would totally make sense if one were to meet Dugin to look him in the eye and ask if he was not in some way involved in his daughter’s death as a propaganda piece. That very well may not be the case. Regardless, he needs to be reminded that ultimately he is responsible for his daughter’s death and contributed to raising a very evil person that his daughter is just like him. I’m all for anyone changing and turning away from evil, but if you really know the horrors of what is going on in Ukraine and not the accounts given by reliable (albeit watered down) media sources then nothing I’m saying is unreasonable or senseless.
It seems that 99% of Western pundits are unable to think about anything involving Russia critically. Merely offering up insight into why they might have different yet rational view of international politics due to historical context will get you called a “Russian bot” whether you approve of their actions or not. And god forbid you point out our own genocidal foreign policy hypocrisy. There are no “good” governments when it comes to war, just bad and worse.
The Russian secret service blew up Russian flats, killing a lot of people, so they could justify escalating their war with Chechnya. These people have a different attitude to what means justify the ends.
Given the bat sh*t crazy that’s been written and said about Donald Trump for the last seven years, does this really surprise anyone?
Millerman seems bitter about Galeev’s rise in twitter popularity. The Dugin assassination theory isn’t as wild as Millerman would like you to believe because of : a) Dugin’s esoteric history all the way back to USSR b) recent Russian history of political assassinations c) the nonsensical fsb story about the killer d) RW twitter talking heads promoted by BAP like Kirill Kaminets of RWA and Anatoly Karlin reacting to the fact that it took 2 days to find the killers of Dugina and ages to find the killers of Nemtsov and Anna Politkovskaya
https://twitter.com/vlvrngn/status/1561929786322214915?s=21
You need to take a course in Logical Reasoning 101.
Is this an ad for Millerman School ?
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