First Debates in Russian Political Philosophy – ‘What Is to be Done?’

Abstract

What to do in an autocratic state that bans philosophy and offers no space for political participation? Accompanying Russia’s rise as a European power, attempts were made to replace absolutist tsarist autocracy by a constitutional monarchy. Cautious attempts by the tsars themselves as well as more daring attempts such as the Decembrist uprising failed. At the same time, the Russian intellectual milieu, partly within, but largely outside university and academic circles, underwent the strong influence of West European philosophy, especially German idealism. This gave rise to heated debates about Russia’s identity, its relation to (the rest of) Europe and its possible role in world history. Heated debates between so-called Westernizers and Slavophiles marked the birth of a self-aware tradition of political-philosophical thought, increasingly in opposition to the tsarist regime and culminating in the 1881 assassination of tsar Aleksandr II.