SLAVOPHILISM: THE OUTCOME OF INTELLECTUAL IDENTITY CRISIS IN RUSSIA

Slavophilism is described as a manifestation of national consciousness among Russian intellectuals at the early 19th century. The aim of this article is to furnish a ground for understanding Slavophilism as an attempt by a group of Russian educated elites to confront the intellectual Identity Crisis. For the explanation of this idea, the article begins with a discussion of the different aspects of the crisis and emergence of slavophilism in the framework of modernization theories. It argues, then, that the question of national identity was a discourse on Russia’s future merely among educated elites, not as a broad sentiment among the ordinary people. The article, ultimately, addresses the influence of Romanticism on Slavophilism. It establishes that Romantic ideas and concepts shaped the identity crisis and at the same time provided the material of a new intellectual agenda to confront the crisis