Abstract

This paper is a study on Slavicism in the debate between Slavophilism and Westernism, which was an ideological debate that engulfed Russian intellectual circles in the early and mid-19th century. The development history of Russian written language, starting with славянский (Slavicism) in the 9th century and moving toward славянорусский (Slavyanorossiysky) in the mid-18th century, is a journey of weakening the position of славянский and increasing the status of русский.
 The superiority of the former over the latter was maintained for several centuries, but cracks in the relationship between the two languages began to appear during the reign of Peter the Great in the late-17th and early-18th centuries. From the mid-18th century, they fused into one national literary language, namely славянорусский. Slavicism, which started out as a category in origin, transitioned into a stylistic category from this period and functioned as a stylistic component within the stylistic system of Russian literary language. This study examines the characteristics of Slavicism from the mid-18th century to the early-to-mid-19th century by classifying it in terms of form and function. After introducing the conflicting views of Slavophilism and Westernism on Slavicism, as well as a compromise view of these two views, the paper expresses the following views: The debate between Slavophilism and Westernism only ended in different interpretations of the linguistic reality of Russia at the time and had no effect on the linguistic reality. Slavicism, which had undergone continuous changes for several centuries, was following its own path of change, regardless of the ideologies and ideals of intellectuals regarding language, especially in the 19th century.

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