Hegelianism, Russian

By Walicki, Andrzej

In Russian intellectual history the so-called ‘remarkable decade’ of 1838–48 (P.V. Annenkov’s expression) could be characterized as a truly ‘philosophical epoch’. Speculative philosophy was seen by then as ...

Russian philosophy of history

By Walicki, Andrzej

In his classic book The Russian Idea Nikolai Berdiaev pointed out that ‘independent Russian thought was awakened by the problem of the philosophy of history’. It was because ...

Bakunin, Mikhail Aleksandrovich (1814–76)

By Kelly, Aileen

Bakunin was the leading proponent in the second half of the nineteenth century of a variety of anarchism rooted in a Romantic cult of primitive spontaneity, and one ...

Nineteenth-century philosophy

By Stern, Robert

In the first part of the nineteenth century, the reigning philosophical outlook was idealist in one form or another, as the attempt was made to complete the intellectual ...

Trubetskoi, Sergei Nikolaevich (1862–1905)

By Poole, Randall A.

Prince Sergei N. Trubetskoi came from one of the most enlightened and distinguished noble families in Russia. By 1890 he had emerged as one of the country’s major ...

Liberalism, Russian

By Hamburg, G.M.

Unlike early English liberalism which stressed individual freedom from state control and from the ‘tyranny of the majority’, Russian liberalism generally emphasized the importance of legality in government, ...

Schellingianism, Russian

By Terras, Victor

Schelling’s philosophy, spread by German professors teaching at Russian universities and by Russians who had studied in Germany, some with Schelling himself, had an early and lasting influence ...

Slavophilism

By Walicki, Andrzej

In the Slav countries outside Russia the term ’Slavophilism’ is a generic name for all advocates of the ’Slav idea’, irrespective of their philosophical views and political commitments. ...

Russian Idea, the

By Walicki, Andrzej

‘The Russian Idea’ is a term used by Russian thinkers to define specific features of Russian culture, the spiritual make-up of the Russian nation, the meaning of Russian ...

Russian philosophy of law

By Walicki, Andrzej

Russian thought is rarely associated with philosophy of law. The intellectuals of pre-revolutionary Russia are known rather for their uncompromising critique of legalism, passing sometimes into a genuine ...

Belinskii, Vissarion Grigorievich (1811–48)

By Terras, Victor

Belinskii was considered by his followers in the nineteenth century, and by the official ideology of the Soviet period, to be not only Russia’s greatest literary critic, but ...

Russian Materialism: ‘the 1860s’

By Scanlan, James P.

No tradition of philosophical materialism existed in Russia until the years conventionally called ‘the 1860s’ – roughly, the period from the death of Tsar Nicholas I in 1855 ...

Herzen, Aleksandr Ivanovich (1812–70)

By Kelly, Aileen

Lauded by Nietzsche as ‘a man of every distinctive talent’ and admired by Lenin as the founder of the Russian revolutionary movement, Herzen eludes all neat categorizations. As ...

Russian philosophy

By Kelly, Aileen

Russian thought is best approached without fixed preconceptions about the nature and proper boundaries of philosophy. Conditions of extreme political oppression and economic backwardness are not conducive to ...

Chicherin, Boris Nikolaevich (1828–1904)

By Hamburg, G.M.

Chicherin was a Russian liberal historian of law, a political and religious philosopher and a public figure, who briefly served as Moscow’s elected mayor (1882–3). Before the mid-1860s ...

Hegelianism

As an intellectual tradition, the history of Hegelianism is the history of the reception and influence of the thought of G.W.F. Hegel. This tradition is notoriously complex and ...