Slavophiles on the European Enlightenment and the Reforms of Peter the Great as Causes of the Transformation of Russian Cultural Identity and Historical Memory

Abstract

The author addresses the problems of the correlation between the national and the global (universal) in the cultural identity of Russia, as well as the interaction of tradition and modernization in the development of all spheres of Russian society. The article presents the position of the founders of the ideology of Slavophilism — A.S. Khomyakov, I.V. Kireevsky and J. F. Samarin. In the conditions of Russian autocracy in the middle of the 19th century Slavophiles demonstrated double civil courage, opposing their point of view to the state conservatism and state modernization. The attitude of Slavophile thinkers to the reforms of Peter the Great as a turning point in the history of Russian society and state, as well as in the formation of national selfconsciousness is shown. There were disagreements between Slavophiles in assessing the state of pre-Petrine Russia. However, the most important negative consequence of Peter's reforms and uncritical borrowing of the Western enlightenment was seen by all Slavophile authors as a split in Russia's cultural identity: the separation of educated society from the people and separation of the state from society. The Slavophiles associated the bridging of this gap with two factors. Firstly, with a revival of the Russian Enlightenment based on a synthesis of the national spiritual tradition and the universal achievements of Western civilization. Secondly, with the implementation of social and political reforms “from above”, first of all — with the abolition of serfdom.