Pro-Tsarist forms of Russian messianism: Pan-Slavism, Dostoevsky and Solovyov

The death of Nicholas I, the accession of Alexander II (1855-81) and the easing of censorship gave rise in Russia to hopes of political and social improvements being introduced from above. Slavophilism developed in a number of directions, most of which retained the elements of the messianic core. I shall deal now with those versions which accepted the tsarist system: the pan-Slavists, the pochvenniki and Dostoevsky, Leontev, Fyodorov and Vladimir Solovyov. Dostoevsky occupies a central position. I consider in the next chapter the revolutionaries, the narodniks and Marxists.