«SELFISHNESS IS THE VIRTUE OF PEOPLES»: RUSSIAN «THE 1880S – 1890S.

Kotov A.

The article is devoted to the relationship between the foreign policy and domestic policy agendas in the works of minor publicists at the turn of the 1880s – 1890s. The attitude towards the Slavic question was one of the lines of demarcation between different branches of post-reform Russian conservatism. One or another form of sympathy for the Slavic peoples and their liberation movement has traditionally been characteristic of national conservatism: Slavophiles and «Katkovites». Ideologists of aristocratic conservatism in the 1860s contrasted it with the concept of «national egoism», which was most clearly reflected in the slogan «Russia for Russians», first formulated by the aristocratic newspaper «Vest». The turning point in the attitude of Russian society towards the Slavs was the Russian-Turkish war of 1877–1878. In 1888, even the nationalist Russian press again began to discuss the idea of a possible Russian-Turkish union. By this time, even Russian political nationalism found K.N. Leontiev’s ideas in demand and the concept of «national egoism» became an organic element of the concept of Russian identity.

Keywords:Pan-Slavism, Slavophilism, nationalism, conservatism, Balkans, Slavism