Doctrinal grounds of ideology of Slavophiles: European intellectual tradition and its Russian modification

Abstract

The subject of this research is the conceptual grounds of Slavophilic ideology that formed under the influence of European sociopolitical thought of the late XVIII – early XIX centuries, and undergone substantial transformation in the process of adaptation to the Russian sociocultural reality. The article analyzes such concepts as nation, collective subject, national spirit (Volksgeist), special path (Sonderweg), etc., which were partially borrowed by Slavophiles from intellectual production of the German national romanticism, and gained further development having become the theoretical framework for studying different problems of Russian society and the state. Methodology is based on the comparative and historical-genetic methods, which allowed determining and examining the elements of similarity between the ideas of European and sociopolitical thought and Slavophilic conceptual ground, as well as their modification within the Russian intellectual environment. The main conclusion consists in the thesis that Slavophilism cannot be unequivocally attributed to liberal or conservative ideology. It combined the principles and postulates of both philosophical systems that acquired new synthesized content within the framework of Russian intellectual space. Slavophilic attitude toward Russian society, which marked the defining meaning of spiritual beginning of social life, also drastically differed from the national patriotism in the context of the theory of official nationalism, with its vividly expressed statist principle.