Leont’ev, Konstantin Nikolaevich (1831–91)

One of the more original and provocative nineteenth-century Russian thinkers, Leont’ev directed a powerful intellectual attack at the dominant historical movement of his time: the process of modernization that was sweeping across Western Europe and making inroads into Russia. Leont’ev resisted the sociopolitical aspects of this process: the spread of democratic, egalitarian and constitutional principles. He also resisted its cultural and psychological aspects: the emergence of a standardized, homogenized mode of life and set of values.

Leont’ev defended the traditional values and institutions of monarchy, established Church, aristocracy and – especially – the distinctiveness and variety of national cultures. It was this distinctiveness, based on the isolation of nation states, that he saw as increasingly threatened by the advancing technologies of transport and communication.