The Political Theory of Neo-Slavophilism: Politics Without Politicians

Russian Studies in History. 2021. Vol. 59. No. 1-2. P. 63–73.

Solov'ev K. A.

One of the main tenets of the political theory of Neo-Slavophilism is an affirmation
of the freedom of society from the grueling day-to-day routine of politics
and, hence, from all the problems related to the allocation of authority and its
duties. This human freedom is guaranteed by an autocrat who has taken the
heavy burden of decision making upon himself. But by fleeing from politics,
society risks ending up in its “hot embrace”: in any case, it needs guarantees
against abuses by the authorities. This was a kind of intellectual challenge to Neo-
Slavophilism: proposing a mechanism of limitations on unlimited authority and
setting boundaries for political space through the efforts of an apolitical society.
And unlike the poetic mode of the founding fathers of Slavophilism, the style of
thought of the Neo-Slavophiles suited the execution of this task quite well. Since it
was “technological” to the maximum degree, their thought was focused on
a detailed design of the future organization of authority.

Keywords: монархия, monarchy, Slavophilism, славянофильство, революционаризм, revolutionary movements